ODESA, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Defense Ministry showed off its pilot program designed to train the civilian population to fight a war if it ever comes to it. The program, provisionally called Preparation of Population to Total Resistance, is being polished and will first start in larger cities, according to Oleksandr Danyliuk, adviser to the defense minister and author of the program. It's not clear when it will start, however.
A couple dozen journalists were taken to a training ground some 30 kilometers from Odesa on Aug. 16-17, and forced to take a crash course in fighting a partisan war. They were shown how to set up a military camp in the middle of a field, shoot from a whole range of weapons, including machine guns. They were also trained how to behave in case they get ambushed by the enemy, and how to organize a guerilla-style raid against the enemy camp, as well as a crash-course in explosives and how to set them up. There is a total of nine modules in the program.
The program will be based on the training course for the students of the Odesa Military Academy of the Ground Forces, one of the oldest in the country.
“Ideally, we would like to arrive to the stage when every citizen would take a two-month course,” Danyliuk said. “But realistically it will probably be 72 hours of theoretical and practical training.”
He said the ministry of defense will be cherry-picking those who show aptitude for this type of activity, and offer then further training to be able to set up underground civilian networks that could be activated in case of a war. He said having such a network would mean a compete change of the nation's military doctrine.
“This is a search of the new Ukrainian formula, but as an example we're taking the Swiss and Israeli experience,” Danyliuk said. He said every citizen will prospectively take a two-month training course, and then get regular additional training sessions every two years – if the experimental course takes off.
He said the journalists became the guinea pigs of the program so that they can inform the general public about the available training.
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