Lost in translation: Germany’s challenges training Ukrainian soldiers The Financial Times

The Financial Times has published an article arguing that old tanks, ageing recruits and a lack of competent interpreters complicate Berlin’s efforts. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

Teaching inexperienced soldiers how to operate a tank on the front line in just six weeks was never going to be easy.

But when German, Dutch and Danish officers gathered in a lush green patch of the North German countryside to train Ukrainian men, they were not expecting a shortage of competent interpreters to be the top issue.

“Interpreters are challenge number one,” said Martin Bonn, a Dutch brigadier general who is deputy head of the multinational EU training mission launched last November to educate Ukrainians on a range of weapons and tactics. Kyiv and western capitals are providing translators, who often struggle with the necessary vocabulary.

By the end of the year, 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers will have received training in Germany, part of a broader Western drive to equip the Ukrainian armed forces with tanks, artillery and air defence systems that has seen 63,000 recruits dispatched by Kyiv to attend training camps in Europe and the US.

“The big challenge is the translation of words used in a military or technical context . . . Words no one uses in everyday life,” Bonn said after Ukrainian soldiers took part in a tank shooting exercise at a military base near Klietz in northeastern Germany.

European trainers were full of praise for the “tremendous motivation” of the recruits, despite the stress of the brutal war they are fighting and the daily dangers to friends and family back home. 

But they also said that the age and ability of the soldiers they are sent varies wildly, as Ukrainian commanders on the front line are often unwilling to spare their best men. One volunteer who turned up in Germany was 71 years old.

Ukrainian soldiers expressed satisfaction with what they learned in Klietz about the Leopard 1 A5 tank, an older and less sophisticated version of the Leopard 2 that gained international fame at the start of this year as Germany resisted intense pressure from Ukraine and Nato allies to supply it to Kyiv.

They stressed, however, that newer weapons were always preferable to older ones.

Ukrainian soldiers and their Western trainers are acutely aware that Kyiv has failed to make the progress that it had hoped for in the highly anticipated counteroffensive against Vladimir Putin’s forces that began in June. 

The tough terrain, Russia’s sophisticated electronic warfare and its use of drones are three of the problems confronting Ukrainian troops on the ground, said Bonn, the Dutch brigadier general.

“This is very difficult,” he said. “We’re looking in ways to prepare the Ukrainians to operate in such an environment.”

Officials from other Western nations have in recent weeks voiced frustration at differences of opinion over strategy and tactics for countering Russia. That view was echoed by one of the German trainers in Klietz, who hid his identity with sunglasses and a neck gaiter. He said that he sometimes experienced friction with older Ukrainian commanders who were trained in Soviet times and sometimes “think they know better”.

But Western militaries — whose most recent combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan differs hugely from the more traditional war being fought in Ukraine — also say that they are learning from the Ukrainian armed forces.

Germany is not the only country to have struggled with translation issues during training programmes.

A similar problem has reared its head in Denmark, where about eight Ukrainian pilots and dozens of support staff are being trained to fly F-16 fighters at Skrydstrup air base. 

Danish military officials said the training — which became all the more urgent after Copenhagen on Sunday made a joint pledge with the Netherlands to donate their fighter jets to Ukraine — was being held up by security clearance for the pilots. Language skills and health checks were further reasons for the hold-up, officials said.

European commanders say they are in close contact with their Ukrainian counterparts, and seek to respond quickly to feedback and changing demands as Kyiv strives to sustain its stuttering counteroffensive.

Still, Nick Reynolds, a research fellow for land warfare at Rusi, said that it was often difficult for Western training to meet the expectations of both sides.

Kyiv is eager for more combined arms training that involves exercises with tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, infantry and drones to more closely replicate conditions that exist on the battlefield, but such exercises can be risky. He said that Western nations understandably had low tolerance for accidents but that their approach “doesn’t mesh well with [Kyiv’s] requirements for trainees”.

There is also frustration about the weapons themselves that Western nations are delivering.

Germany has become one of the world’s top suppliers of arms to Ukraine in absolute terms, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced persistent accusations of foot-dragging. Europe’s largest nation eventually bowed to demands to supply Kyiv with Leopard tanks — in January. It is now in a debate about whether or not to agree to Kyiv’s request for Taurus cruise missiles, with Scholz fearful of the risk of escalation with Moscow.

The Leopard 1, which Berlin agreed to supply along with the Leopard 2, is widely seen as the inferior of the two models, although it is being refurbished before being sent to Ukraine. The tank has thin armour that can leave it vulnerable in areas with little cover such as the flat terrain in eastern and south-eastern Ukraine where some of the most intense fighting is taking place. 

Yevhenii, an electrical engineer from eastern Ukraine who admits having only driven a tank for a “short time” before being sent to Klietz for training, defended the weapon. “It has several significant advantages over the Russian T72 tanks,” said the 32-year-old, who declined to give his surname.

Lieutenant General Andreas Marlow, a self-described “tank man” who heads the German arm of the EU training mission, conceded that the Leopard 2 might have a “higher combat value”. But, speaking after what he described as the “very respectable” shooting display by the Ukrainian trainees, he also praised the 1960s-era model for its ease of operation and maintenance — and its availability.

Many capitals are more comfortable relinquishing the often mothballed Leopard 1 than giving up precious stocks of a newer tank. 

“The advantage of the Leopard 1 A5 is that we can deliver it in three-digit numbers by this year or next year,” Marlow said. “Quantity also plays a role.”