2023-06-03 11:03:36
After a month and a half with the Boureviy (“Hurricane” in French) assault brigade, which is training specially for the counter-offensive, even spokesman Pavlo has still not managed to break through the fog. of the secrecy surrounding the Ukrainian army. How many infantry does the brigade have? Are the six battalions which constitute it complete? “I’m still trying to figure it out”, he has fun on the rutted road leading to the shooting range, at the gates of the forest. He barely knows that his brigade will probably leave for the Eastern Front, when the order for the “reconquest” is given, in a still mysterious future.
Within Boureviy, there are many volunteers and requisitioned soldiers who would have preferred to do something else. This is the story of Pavlo, 43 years old. This white-haired man was the director of a private kyiv theater and an assistant to foreign media before April. “Naively”as he tells it in English, he went to the military administration in March to obtain a waiver to leave the country in order to accompany his company to Portugal. “I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse”, replied the officer. After a passage through the medical examination, here he is engaged under the flags: “Past the moment of amazement, I made up my mind”he confides, fatalistic.
“I want to quickly return to the front”
Before his enlistment, his military experience was limited to orienteering exercises and visits to the trenches carried out during his missions with foreign journalists. He is one of Boureviy’s new recruits who have joined the veterans withdrawn from the front lines this winter, in order to prepare for the counter-offensive. That day, one of his superiors, Captain “Boris” observed the qualities and weaknesses of the men incorporated into his unit. “A soldier must understand who is next to him and how he moves”explains this silent bearded man in Russian.
He leads soldiers aged 21 to 63. Most experienced fire around Kharkiv (in the east), then were deployed to the Kiev region last March, where they train daily. For everyone, these exercises look like a lull, during which they were able to enjoy their families, before the storm. “Honestly, I want to quickly return to the frontbreathes Alexandre, between two lying shooting sessions. Do not stay too long at the back otherwise you lose your bearings. And the sooner we liberate our territories, the sooner I’ll return to civilian life. »
A wrought iron morale
Among the soldiers encountered, each wears a wrought iron morale. “I have the best guys in our nation here. They are all volunteers, insists Lieutenant Vitali Markhiv, a former bodybuilding teacher, before throwing names to one of his subordinates lost in orders and counter-orders. The officer has been on the go since 2014 and the first fights in the Donbass against the Russians and the separatists. “Putin wanted to demilitarize Ukrainehe notes. Instead, he forced us to build an army. My guys weren’t meant to be military. »
Vitali Markhiv remains discreet about the modern weapons provided by Europeans and the Americans. “I like France’s combat rations”, he slips, smiling. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the nine brigades of the “offensive guard”, approximately 40,000 soldiers, received armored vehicles, artillery and light tanks. They will support the new battalions of the regular army, the number of which is classified. “We know that the counter-offensive will cause a lot of deaths, but if there is no counter-offensive, we will have more deaths”released Lieutenant Markhiv, returning without delay to his maneuvers.
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