re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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When Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive finally begins, the fight will be led by brigades armed not only with Western weapons but also Western know-how, gleaned from months of training aimed at transforming Ukraine’s military into a modern force skilled in NATO’s most advanced warfare tactics.

As other Ukrainian units were fighting to expel the Russian occupiers from the country’s east and south, the brand-new 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade was preparing for the next phase of war from a classroom at a NATO base in Germany.

The brigade’s leadership trained with computers that simulated situations they might face in real life. Deputy commander Maj. Ivan Shalamaha and others planned their assaults and then let the program show them the results — how their Russian enemies might respond, where they could make a breakthrough and where they would suffer losses.

“You understand the overall picture, how it works,” Shalamaha said. “You understand where and what your shortcomings were. And we pay attention to what we failed to do during this simulation.”

Now the war games are over. The 47th brigade and other assault units have been armed with Western weapons, including Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and relocated to a secret location closer to the front line. During a recent visit by Washington Post journalists, the soldiers were waiting for the order to charge ahead to retake a large swath of Ukrainian territory and tip the war back in Kyiv’s favor.

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Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called it the “next level” of security assistance, something he and other officials requested from their Western partners. The United Kingdom has been providing basic training to thousands of Ukrainian recruits since last summer. But more recently, whole Ukrainian units have been sent to Germany and other countries to learn “how to operate simultaneously together, like interoperability among the different units,” Reznikov said.

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One goal of the training is to teach Ukraine’s soldiers how to go on offense. For years, the Ukrainian military focused mainly on defensive tactics — how to protect its territory from attack. Even soldiers who fought Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine for eight years before Moscow’s full-scale invasion had little experience with planned assaults.

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At the training in Germany earlier this year, “the main tasks that were played there were offensive — only going on the offensive,” said a 29-year-old company commander whom The Washington Post is identifying only by his call sign, Tovarish, out of security concerns.

“We were in constant contact with their sergeants, officers, soldiers, as they trained us,” Tovarish said. “We had translators with us, so we could ask any questions. There was never a time when we asked a question, and they didn’t respond. Everything was really at a high level. We saw this other level, and we need to get there.”

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Shalamaha said the first tasks working with KORA, a war-game simulator designed for NATO forces, were to plan make-believe operations on foreign soil against a pretend enemy. The instruction progressed to focus on what lies ahead for Ukraine’s military this summer. By the end, Shalamaha was working alongside commanders of other brigades expected to fight in the counteroffensive, coordinating their actions to test how they’d work together on the battlefield.

Others in the 47th brigade received training specific to the weapons or vehicles they’d be receiving, first learning the basics of how to operate them, then how to incorporate them as a single battle unit and then alongside other units.

A 32-year-old private whose call sign is Luke said he remained in touch with some of the American instructors he met. Sometimes he asks for advice or to review some of the things they taught him.

“In Germany, they really gave us a good chance to feel how it’s going to be,” Luke said. “As a team leader, I can command like five to seven people. But when it gets to be more than that, you really do need more practice. And then you’re trying to organize a whole battalion to move at the same time and everybody has to know what they’re doing. It’s really, really difficult.

The 47th brigade started as a battalion that Shalamaha and Valerii Markus, a famous veteran and author with more than 450,000 Instagram followers, were charged with creating. It eventually grew to a full-fledged brigade intended to break through enemy lines.

“I realized that there was indeed an opportunity to create something — something interesting, something important, which could then grow into something much bigger,” Markus said.

“When I joined the army 12 years ago, I encountered a lot of things that disappointed me very much, that made me hate the army,” he added. “When I received this offer, I saw it as an opportunity to build a unit in which I would have liked to serve 12 years ago.”

Though still unproven on the battlefield, the 47th brigade is armed almost entirely with Western weapons and, in a first, nearly every one of the unit’s soldiers has undergone a weeks-long course with foreign instructors. The 47th’s leadership is also especially young — all born after the fall of the Soviet Union. Alongside Shalamaha, who is 25, Lt. Col. Oleksandr Sak, the brigade’s top commander, is 28. Markus, the chief master sergeant, is 29.

“We are the young generation,” Shalamaha said. “We still have our whole lives ahead of us, and we are now fighting for this state which we want to see for ourselves, for our children, grandchildren, and so on.”

But the biggest change? They didn’t just accept anyone, interviewing every soldier who wanted to join the brigade. Commanders questioned each person’s motivation and readiness. Every candidate had to pass a physical fitness test.

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which was eventually determined to be the blue and yellow flag of Russia's own Aerospace Forces.

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Ukraine asks us to not spoil the offensive plan... and at the end of this video spoils the newest toy ?? Ukraine received.

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