Ukrainian soldiers are trained at the Jomsborg camp in Poland, where Norwegian instructors introduce them to Western military methods.
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The program focuses mainly on basic military skills, leadership, planning, and decision-making. However, the learning process goes both ways – Ukrainian soldiers also share with Western partners knowledge gained directly on the battlefield.
Brigadier General Atle Molde, who leads the international headquarters supporting the training of Ukrainian soldiers, Task Force Legio, especially praised the Ukrainians’ ability to find innovative solutions.
According to him, Ukrainians know how to “improvise in very difficult situations.”
“It’s impressive. They can improvise, adapt, reorient, grow, improve, and change.”
In his opinion, the Norwegian army should also adopt this experience because Ukraine is essentially testing new military methods under real combat conditions.
“They are much more creative than us”
One of the Norwegian instructors preparing squad leaders at the Jomsborg camp also noted the unconventional thinking of Ukrainian soldiers.
“Overall, they are much more creative than us,” he said.
He believes this is partly because the Ukrainian army has fewer standardized procedures than Western armed forces.
“I think that is their strength.”
Similarly, soldiers who worked with Ukrainians in other training programs valued them. Western officers emphasized the great tactical imagination of Ukrainians and their ability to adapt to battlefield situations.
The reason for such ingenuity is obvious: Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting Russia for several years, and since the large-scale invasion began in 2022, the nature of combat has been changing especially rapidly.
“During peacetime, the cycle of innovation moves very slowly. But when war starts, it suddenly spins 10 or 100 times faster,” explained A. Molde.
Some soldiers lack basic preparation
However, extensive combat experience does not always mean a soldier has a solid foundation in all military disciplines. A. Molde gave an example illustrating this.
“We had soldiers from Ukraine with two years of combat experience, but they did not know how to shoot a rifle accurately,” he said.
According to the instructor, some soldiers may have been rapidly mobilized and did not receive the basic training that Western soldiers usually get.
Moreover, in modern battlefields, small arms play a much smaller role than before. Artillery and drones perform a large part of combat tasks, so even a soldier with real combat experience may have relatively little practice using a rifle.
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Major John, an operations officer helping coordinate the training at the camp, also noted this feature. According to him, Ukrainian soldiers “showed us many different creative methods.” However, “in some units, these traditional skills were not as well developed.”
The description of the training camp itself notes that Ukrainian soldiers arrive with very different experiences. Among them are experienced veterans wanting to master advanced tactics, but others need to improve basic infantry combat skills.
During training, they practice shooting under stress, learn combat communication, and infantry actions at the squad and platoon levels.
Ukraine and the West learn from each other
Despite some gaps in basic skills among soldiers, Western instructors do not consider this training a one-way process.
John noted that Ukrainians are “innovative” and actively use new technologies.
“We try to learn that from them. And then we try to pass on skills related to traditional methods, planning approaches, military decision-making processes, and similar things.”
In his opinion, the combination of Ukrainian soldiers’ combat experience and Western military training “yields good results.”
Ukraine also determines what training it needs, and Ukrainian instructors work together with Western instructors. This exchange of experience is especially valuable to Kyiv’s partners. Ukrainian soldiers have modern war experience with Russia, understand its tactics, and face new technological challenges daily.
At the same time, Western armies can offer standardized methods, planning systems, and basic military training that some Ukrainian units have not fully received due to war circumstances.
That is why, according to A. Molde, Ukrainian and Western armies can “develop in parallel” – learning from each other what each side lacks.
Ukrainians in NATO exercises
Ukrainian soldiers help NATO countries ensure their training is as close as possible to real battlefield conditions. During exercises in Poland, Ukrainian instructors pointed out the shortcomings of the training ground to Western soldiers and successfully negotiated changes to the training program.
The training ground was set up to replicate the conditions Ukrainian soldiers face on the front: it includes trench networks, firing positions, tank positions, and fortifications in both urban and rural areas.
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