A turnkey unit for Ukraine: how France is preparing the largest military contingent in its modern history
15 October 2024 13:30
ANALYSIS
The French continue to prepare a turnkey unit for Ukraine – the 155th Brigade named after Anna Kyivska is undergoing general military basic training in the eastern departments of continental France. Everything started as planned in September.
The training
The training grounds are kept secret, but, judging by media reports, they are being prepared to a high standard: they have created a working area of hundreds of metres of trenches and dugouts, and during tactical exercises, they are using FPV drones on a large scale to teach them how to resist them and get used to what they will see on the battlefield in Ukraine.
We were shown one of the bases near Reims, where Macron arrived for an inspection. The training deadline is early December. It’s pretty quick, because the first reports of the decision were only in June.
This is the largest contingent that Paris has ever trained on the territory of the country in its recent history, a kind of return to big European politics, no longer in the NATO fold.
In total, the French have already trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers.
Armament
The Anna Kyivska is also being armed by Paris – 128 VAB armoured vehicles (three battalion sets and a command centre), 20 Milan ATGMs at the top level and Javelin ATGMs at the company level, a Caesars division of 18 (it is unclear whether these are the batches promised to us or whether France is already switching to Mk.2), and a tank battalion with AMX-10 RCs (18-24 vehicles according to various sources).
Judging by the fact that it is also about an anti-aircraft division, at least some man-portable air defence systems and small anti-aircraft artillery will be transferred for self-defence against drones and attack aircraft. We already have more than a regiment of AMX-10 RCs, and soon we will have even more. This is not a tank in the classical sense, but rather a reconnaissance vehicle with fire support.
The main thing this means is that the entire brigade is completely dependent on French logistics. Spare parts, engines, tyres, missiles, shells for 105 mm tank guns, and Caesars – all of this will be hanging in Paris for months.
Follow us on Telegram: the main news in a nutshell
Pace
We need a trained brigade as quickly as possible, by yesterday. So, we are preparing the backbone (combat positions, people involved in repairs, communications, artillery, logistics, anti-aircraft), only about 2,300 people. The rest are being trained in Ukraine.
After the unsuccessful offensive in 2023, it became clear that we needed to work as much as possible on mechanised and motorised infantry units, interaction, coordination and control – the time when a raid on five Humvees could lead to a breakthrough is over.
It should be understood that, for example, German or Canadian tank brigades train in a three-year cycle, with several months of basic training only.
Aviation
As for the fact that France trains pilots quickly, there are no problems with the English language, and the rest can be “pulled”. The start of basic training at Alphajet is March 2024. The end of September – specialisation in Mirage.
The first quarter of 2025 is when you will be ready. 12-13-month cycle. The same as for the F-16. There can be no miracles or accelerated programmes.
Modern aviation, with the interaction of strike, reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft, is very difficult. Each flight with corrective bombs or Scalps, operations that are calculated literally by seconds, planning for air defence breaches – it is difficult for both control officers and pilots.
Outlook
Since the Kharkiv offensive, when Russia lost a huge territory the size of a European country and hundreds of pieces of equipment, and later Kherson, the parties have been stuck in a positional deadlock.
The fact that the Russians have now advanced 22 kilometres from the sandbox near Avdiivka towards Pokrovsk, are pulling their guts out west of Selydove and have taken Vuhledar is bad, but not fatal.
Both Avdiivka and Vuhledar have been ruins of rubble and dead stone for months. Any losses, spread over time, are overcome by replenishment, recruitment and training,
In the winter, it looked like the beginning of a disaster, almost a collapse of the front, when months of unsuccessful assaults on the promontory and spoil heaps around Avdiivka led to a breakthrough. Now it looks like a working situation – they are stuck in Selydove, trying to go around it. It’s hard, but we can work. We have to.
France is working for the long term: permission to strike with Scalp cruise missiles; training of Ukrainian pilots; transfer of Mirage modernised for our realities and turnkey training of a brigade; transfer of dozens and production of dozens more Caesar air defence systems; hundreds of armoured personnel carriers.
To sum up, it is difficult to overestimate the support of a nuclear power that produces its own line of ammunition, aircraft, supplies us with hundreds of armoured vehicles and dozens of self-propelled guns, trains our units and transfers air defence systems. What France, and the EU more broadly, is doing for us now means tens of thousands of saved Ukrainian lives.
Follow us on Telegram: the main news in a nutshell
Author: Kyrylo Danylchenko, military expert
