VÆRNES, TRØNDELAG (Nettavisen): In a tired defense building, the Norwegian and Ukrainian flags hang side by side, while Norwegian instructors from the Home Guard prepare to receive a new group of Ukrainian students on Monday.
The Ukrainian soldiers will be trained in several different branches, including sanitation, sharpshooting, team management and, not least, the use of drones.
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Drones account for most of the deaths in Ukraine
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– Drones account for around 70 percent of those who are killed and injured along the front line today, says company manager Jan Henrik Jørstad to Nettavisen.
He is the commander of Company Hegna and Operation Gungne, which is the operation that trains the Ukrainian soldiers.
The war in Ukraine is very different from Afghanistan and other military operations Norway has been involved in in recent years. It is a kind of combination of technology from World War III and World War I at the same time.
Russia has recently started using horses along the front line, something Norway stopped doing in 1985.
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HIGH-TECH HORSE: Russia actively uses horses, donkeys and ponies along the front line. Some are loaded with Starlink terminals or electronic warfare equipment.
Photo: Montage (X/Twitter: @bayraktar_1love)
High-tech war
While you were relatively safe in a trench in 1916, today you are an easy target for an FPV drone, so to survive you have to dig into the ground.
Many Ukrainian infantrymen are deployed along the front line in holes in the ground, underground cellars or the like for over a hundred days, some as long as six months at a time.
Here they try to keep the Russians away to the best of their ability. If they stick their heads out, there is a high chance of being killed by a Russian drone.
The reason they are so long along the front line is that it is completely impossible to evacuate without being killed. Supplies come with drones, both airborne, but also drones that walk along the ground.
This makes evacuation of the injured very challenging. NATO has a standard that an injured soldier must be transported to an operating room at a safe distance from the front line within one hour.
– You don’t come close to being able to do that in Ukraine, says Jørstad.
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Drones make evacuation life-threatening
He says it can take both days and weeks before injured soldiers are evacuated. For many, the evacuation comes far too late. Injuries Norwegian soldiers survived in Afghanistan are a death sentence in Ukraine.
– It is because of the danger of drones. One is dependent on bad weather which makes it difficult for the enemy to fly drones. Only then can you try to evacuate, he explains.
Therefore, Jørstad and his colleagues have had to adapt the teaching. The Ukrainian soldiers must have the skills and equipment to carry out life-saving first aid along the front line, and keep the injured soldiers alive for as long as possible.
Gleb Benia (29) lost an arm and a leg in a drone attack along the front line. You can see Nettavisen’s report about him here:
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The injuries sustained by soldiers in Ukraine are not so different from other wars. The big difference is that it is almost impossible to give them good treatment in hospital in time.
The Ukrainian soldiers who come to Norway have varying experience. Some have been soldiers since the start of the war in 2014, others have recently been mobilized.
The experience the soldiers bring with them from Ukraine means that the Norwegian instructors also learn new things. For each contingent of Ukrainians who come to Norway, they bring with them drone experts who update the Norwegian instructors on the latest news about drone technology.
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Many different drones
– Before we started the first course, our instructors were trained by Ukrainian specialists. A lot has happened since then, development is very fast, explains Jørstad.
At Værnes, they provide training in three different drone types:
- FPV drones. These have an explosive charge on board and are flown into the target. It can be a Russian soldier, a tank and so on.
- Bomber drones. Larger drones that drop bombs on the Russians. Can take out individual soldiers, vehicles and Russian positions.
- Surveillance drones. These give the soldiers an overview of the front line.
In addition, they are also experimenting with fiber optic drones at Værnes. The vast majority of drones used in Ukraine are wireless, making them vulnerable to electronic warfare. The fibre-optic drones are controlled via a cable as thin as a fishing line and cannot be affected by electronic warfare.
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Ukrainian soldiers are trained to kill Russians
The aim of the training is clear:
– They will go home and kill Russians, and avoid being killed themselves, says Jørstad.
He says they have good contact with parts of the departments that have previously received training at Værnes. For many it has gone well, other soldiers are no longer alive.
– It’s a bit about both luck, bad luck and coincidences. That is the nature of war, he says.
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The Minister of Defense believes that the training strengthens Norway
Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik is full of praise for Operation Gungne, which trains the Ukrainian soldiers. He says to Nettavisen that it strengthens Norway’s operational capability, in addition to training Ukrainian soldiers.
– At the same time, you shouldn’t take it too far, says Sandvik.
He points out that a possible war between Russia, NATO and Norway will be very different.
– Drones will not affect the airspace in the same way, because we want air dominance with greater capacities than what Ukraine has, believes Sandvik, who cannot fully praise the Norwegian Home Guard soldiers who are behind the training.
TOP HEAVY VISIT: Colonel Marianne Eidem (TV), mayor of Stjørdal Eli Arnstad, Minister of Defense Tore O. Sandvik and company commander Jan Henrik Jørstad at the training center at Værnes.
Photo: Tormod Malvin Sæther (Nettavisen)
