"As thewar in Ukrainepassed a landmark 100th day this week, front-line fighters and volunteers say they are grappling with a dark and discouraging reality.
Despite pledges of tanks, artillery and — this week — U.S. rocket systems capable of hitting enemy Russian targets as far as 500 kilometres away, the Ukrainian front lines continue to be populated by at times dangerously ill-equipped fighters.
They are lacking bullets and extra magazines for their rifles, one Canadian fighter said.
They charge into battle in running shoes and mismatched uniforms, according to an American turning Ukrainians into combat medics.
Fighters with bulletproof vests and protective helmets are often indebted to private donors and Ukrainian business owners who have transformed their factories into makeshift production facilities.
“There’s a bunch of stuff that we’re missing for where we’re going,” said a Canadian fighter, a veteran of the French Foreign Legion, who spoke to the Star on condition of anonymity.
“I get that they’re doing the best that they can, but they’re kind of taking this idea of how the Ukrainians fight and operate and trying to force us into the same way of thinking. It’s pretty risky and it doesn’t really work.”
The Canadian said the more experienced foreign fighters, many of whom have been in Iraq or Afghanistan, are unwilling to rush into combat if they are not fully prepared and properly equipped.
“Then you’ve got the other group that is, like, ‘Oh, I just want to kill Russians! Send me to the front! I’m happy with only three magazines and an AK-47. I don’t need plates or a helmet,’ ” he told the Star.
“It’s those other ones that set the standard.”
The problems are most acute in the volunteer ranks, said Kurtis Pasqualle, a former U.S. combat medic who runs Operation Cavell, a group of international medical volunteers that train and fundraise for Ukrainian forces in battlefield medicine.
“We get two to three weeks to train these guys the best we can for what they’re going to face when they go to Donetsk or Kherson or anywhere like that to fight,” he told the Star from Tulsa, Okla., where he was picking up supplies to bring back to Ukraine.
A normal combat medic course might take as long as four months and include instruction on advanced first aid, starting an IV and administering medicine.
But acquiring powerful painkillers like morphine, fentanyl, ketamine and propofol, or Quikclot, a fast-acting agent that helps stop traumatic bleeding, is “next to impossible,” Pasqualle said.
And there is no time to spare.
“With the losses that are happening in these places, we need to put bodies in those holes to keep the offensive shut down. We don’t have the luxury of time,” he said. “We’re trying to find a balance between making (volunteers) ready and getting people out there.”
The disconnect between the weapons pledges made to Ukraine by western governments and the reality for tens of thousands of front-line fighters is jarring.
Canada has donated armoured vehicles, M777 Howitzers, 4,500 M72 rocket launchers, 7,500 hand grenades, 100 M2 Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons, sniper rifles, machine-guns, pistols, night-vision goggles, 1.5 million rounds of ammunition and 20,000 artillery rounds.
The U.S., which is leading the international effort to supply Ukraine’s military, this week promised to deliver four M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems as well as radar systems, additional Javelin anti-tank weapons and four Soviet-era helicopters.
And yet soldiers in Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces — local volunteer militias consisting of able-bodied fighters — are going without things such as headlamps, knee pads, boots and the most basic elements of protective equipment for a combat soldier, according to civilian donor groups contacted by the Star.
“Soldiers in the TDF are at the front lines — as I type this message — without vests,” said the founder of 688th Support Brigade, one of several aid groups trying to purchase and deliver material for soldiers fighting against the Russians.
Asking to remain anonymous, he described himself as a cryptocurrency investor with Polish ancestry who is raising funds from “high-net worth individuals” to buy items that are shipped from Poland into western Ukraine.
On May 29, a volunteer with the 688th Support Brigade group shared a video to the group’s Twitter account showing a Ukrainian soldier it said was a member of a reconnaissance unit. He holds a DJI Mini 2, a civilian drone that can be purchased in retail stores for $560. The soldier thanks the volunteer group by name.
“We purchased a drone for a recon unit with zero drones,” the 688th Support Brigade founder said in a written exchange with the Star. “The commander was literally crying that we could supply something that will keep his unit alive.”
Armed by the West, Ukraine still scrounges for bullets | The Star
