“Don't be in a hurry, because if you're in a hurry you'll make mistakes. And if you make mistakes, you're going to die,” says the instructor to a group of fifty young people who had a completely normal life before the war. Now, they wear military uniforms, are armed and are learning how to fight because, in a few days, one of the fronts of Ukraine will be strengthened.
They are between 18 and 29 years old, some recently entered university and others finished it years ago, but today they get on a bus shouting “Glory for Ukraine!” , “Glory for heroes!” and “Putin is a wretch!” , to attend class, despite the fact that all schools in the country closed because of the war.
In one of the thousands of schools in the Kiev region that remain empty, these fifty young people take their seats in the auditorium and, as if it were a play, watch their instructor carefully: a war veteran who teaches them how to handle an AK-47, how to get some air before firing, or what to do when entering combat inside a building.
YOUNG PEOPLE WITH NO MILITARY EXPERIENCE
When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in late February, Bohdan stopped shooting with his camera and learned how to do it with his kalashnikov. This 23-year-old photographer was one of the first to join the “Revancha” battalion, a unit of hundreds of young people who voluntarily enlisted to fight and defend Ukraine.
Despite having no previous military training, Bohdan was entrenched on the Kiev front to prevent the advance of Russian troops into the capital, he says.
“A friend was very frightened because he didn't have a helmet, so I gave him mine and just then I felt a bullet graze my head. At that moment I understood that I could die at any time,” he tells Efe without releasing his assault rifle.
Like Bohdan, hundreds of young people barely had time to prepare - about three weeks of training from scratch - to grab the rifle and descend into hell from a war that has already claimed thousands of lives.
However, the battalion is not only made up of Ukrainians: there are also young people from other neighboring countries, such as Marta and Michael, two Poles aged 23 and 20 who a month ago told their parents that they had been given a scholarship to go to work abroad. They never told them the truth.
“I want to go to the front. That's what I'm here for,” says Marta, who tells Efe that when the Russian invasion began, the first thing she thought was to join “the Ukrainians in their struggle for freedom.”
This young Polish woman arrived in Ukraine a little over a month ago, claims to have “trained hard every day” and now she wants to “go as fast as possible to the east or south”, where the two main battle fronts are concentrated.
Michael has already had his first front-line experience with just three weeks of training and is now “better prepared” in tactics and heavy weapons shooting, so he is ready to go and reinforce the front in Mariupol, the city besieged by the Russians in southern Ukraine.
SPIRITUAL BATTLE
Among those attending the military master class stands out Father Yaroslav, a 29-year-old Orthodox priest who is dedicated to conducting military masses. On his neck hangs a crucifix and an AK-47 “if necessary”.
“I think it's a spiritual war, it's more than something political with Russia... it's a war against the forces of evil,” says this priest, who says that “prayer is as important as combat.”
NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD
Felix is the code name of a veteran of the Donbas war who was injured in 2016 and had to leave the front. He is now the instructor of “thousands of boys” who have voluntarily enlisted to stop the Russian advance.
“I don't think there is anything like it in the world,” he says, recounting the dozens of new young people who have joined the Revancha battalion and so many others in recent weeks.
Since the war began, he trains these boys who had never grabbed a gun to send them to the front lines in a matter of weeks, something that may be “terrifying” for some, he says.
He is aware that many of his disciples may lose their lives in this bloody war because of the little training they receive, but he says that “these people are committed and have passion”.
“And that's the most important thing, because we don't have much time,” he says.
(with information from EFE)
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