Meet the Europeans teaching Ukrainians how to use lethal weapons

Having witnessed the Russian bombardment of her residence metropolis Kharkiv that confined her mother and father to a bunker for greater than every week, Maria Milashenko determined to behave.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest metropolis and near the border with Russia, was among the many first and hardest hit by the Russian army.

Maria, a 21-year-old college pupil, escaped together with her household to the western Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv, the place she then enrolled at a weapons coaching faculty.

However, with most Ukrainian weapons trainers serving within the military, the lessons are being run by Europeans who’ve arrived to assist the battle effort.

“My mother and father had been trapped in a bunker in Kharkiv for 9 days,” she advised Euronews. “We perceive what occurred there and after we got here to Lviv, we needed to know how you can defend in opposition to that.”

“I used to be a pupil on the College of Kharkiv however I don’t know if will probably be doable to proceed with my diploma. I don’t know if there might be a college to return to.”

The Europeans serving to with the coaching embrace volunteers from Finland, Norway, Lithuania and Latvia, the latter two former members of the Soviet Union.

Maybe surprisingly, there have been additionally instructors from Belarus, which is among the few European nations allied with Vladimir Putin’s administration.

That they had fled Belarus for Ukraine after the crackdown on anti-government protests sparked by Alexander Lukashenko’s disputed reelection.

“We don’t have this sense of hatred in direction of Belarus,” mentioned Maria, who after doing a little coaching is now volunteering on the faculty. “Individuals are right here due to what their coronary heart says.”

These operating the lessons — which contain how you can use a Kalashnikov and hand grenades, in addition to first help coaching — are principally former members of the army of their residence nations.

Amongst them is reservist Gintautas Mauricas, 45, a former member of the Lithuanian armed forces who served as a weapons teacher and labored in army communications.

He’s the founding father of Luksu Vyrai, which up till a number of weeks in the past was operating military-style outside camps in Lithuania for fathers to bond with their sons.

However Gintautas is now in Lviv to offer coaching to Ukrainians.

Gintautas arrived in Ukraine with Tomi Hiltunen, 32, a weapons teacher from Finland, in addition to one other Lithuanian, Povilas Stankunas, 31, who he met whereas making recruitment movies for the Lithuanian military.

“Something to assist win the battle,” Gintautas tells Euronews in a room packed stuffed with military-grade goggles, helmets, and tents.

Many in Gintautas’s native Lithuania — which shares a land border with Russia and Belarus — haven’t forgotten their interval below Soviet rule and there are considerations about who may very well be subsequent if Russia succeeds in Ukraine.

“Russian individuals are simply strange folks like Lithuanians,” mentioned Povilas. “They simply have a horrible chief.”

“We have to cease this loopy man,” he mentioned of Putin. “In any other case, who might be subsequent? In 1990, we needed to battle for our independence; we have to assist Ukraine do the identical now.”

Povilas is a media knowledgeable moderately than a army one. Based mostly In Vilnius, he specialises in producing drone footage and works as a media lecturer at an area college. He is been coaching volunteers how you can use drones and put collectively movies to share on-line.

Povilas is vital of media content material in regards to the battle that’s centered on “likes and a spotlight.”

“They’re not concentrating on portray the image of what it’s at present like right here,” mentioned Povilas. “Our purpose is to point out the world what’s occurring right here. We’ve a mission to enter Kyiv to point out what the state of affairs is correct now.”

Gintautas and Povilas deny they’re involved a few current assault on a army coaching centre on the outskirts of Lviv.

In actual fact, Gintautas say it appears to be like like they’ll now keep longer.

“Extra folks in Lithuania had been frightened in regards to the assault than they had been right here in Lviv,” he mentioned.

“The assault on the coaching centre was a psychological operation. They hoped {that a} foreigner would die and it might cease us [from] serving to Ukraine.”