Aman lies groaning on the path with a red stump where his leg was. Ukrainian recruits run through smoke to kneel behind sandbags and fire at the enemy on a sun-baked hillside.
It looks like a scene from the war in eastern Ukraine, but this is southern England and the casualty an amputee actor, engaged by the British Army to help train Ukrainian civilians in rudimentary soldiering skills to defend their homeland from Russia.
The faces of these raw recruits betray their anxiety as bursts of live machinegun fire crackle overhead — the idea is to “inoculate” them, to familiarise them with the sound so they won’t panic in combat.
#Ukraine: The National Guard of Ukraine took out a Russian BMP-3 IFV with an ATGM strike in the vicinity of Pavlivka, #Donetsk Oblast.pic.twitter.com/LMGYJQZQJF
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 2, 2022
