Civilian Volunteer Battalion Prepares to Defend Ukraine’s Capital
Nolan Peterson /
KYIV, Ukraine—In an abandoned Soviet-era hospital on the outskirts of the city, a civilian volunteer battalion meets every weekend to prepare for a Russian invasion.
The approximately 270 members of the 318th Kyiv Territorial Defense Battalion, which includes both men and women, range in age from 17 to 63, comprising students, lawyers, businessmen and former Soviet military officers.
On Sunday more than 30 of the unit’s members tramped through swampy fields practicing small unit tactics under the watchful eye of their lead instructor Mykhailo Khiraldo-Ramirez, a 31-year-old lawyer who, despite having never served in the military, has the booming voice of a seasoned drill instructor. Along with an instructor from the Donbas volunteer battalion who recently returned from the front lines, Khiraldo-Ramirez led the trainees through drills, teaching them how to react in an artillery strike and how to look for landmines.
“We’re just simple infantrymen, we’re not Navy SEALs or Green Berets,” said Khiraldo-Ramirez, whose military skills are self-taught. “We train skills that every soldier should know.”
The mission of the all-volunteer defense force—which is not an official unit of the Ukrainian armed forces—is twofold:
First, teach recruits eligible for the draft the basic skills needed to survive their first 10 days of front-line combat service.
Second, train civilians in the basic military skills necessary to defend Kyiv in urban combat should pro-Russian separatists or the regular Russian army sack Kyiv.
The 318th Kyiv Territorial Defense Battalion trains outside Kyiv on March 15. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)
The 318th Battalion’s instructors mainly focus on basic skills, but some recruits have gone through more advanced training as snipers, medics and sappers.
“We are at war, and each man has to be ready to defend himself,” said Roman, a 318th Battalion military instructor and reserve officer in the regular Ukrainian army—he asked not to have his last name used due to security concerns. “We have to be prepared to fight if the Russians come this far.”
“We are at war, and each man has to be ready to defend himself,” says Roman, a 318th Battalion military instructor and reserve officer in the regular Ukrainian army.
While the shaky cease-fire continues to largely hold in eastern Ukraine despite daily reports of heavy weapons and small arms attacks, government officials and civilians take seriously the possibility that the conflict’s front lines could ultimately reach as far as Ukraine’s capital city and its nearly 3 million residents.
In September, Kyiv municipal officials announced the city’s metro system would be used as a shelter during an attack, and across the city civilian volunteers have spray-painted signs on the sides of buildings with arrows pointing toward the nearest potential bomb shelter.
Recent statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin have sparked anxiety in the Ukrainian capital.
“If I want to, I can take Kyiv in two weeks,” Putin told European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at a European Union summit on the Ukraine crisis last September, according to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.
The Kremlin later said the Russian president’s comments were taken out of context.
While the Russian military has the capacity to take Kyiv in two weeks, such an operation would likely strain Russia’s military resources and Putin’s political capital, said Luke Coffey, Margaret Thatcher fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a U.S. Army veteran.
“Taking Kyiv would require the overt assistance of tens of thousands of conventional Russian troops and support from a sizable portion of the local population,” Coffey said. “I do not think Vladimir Putin has the political will for the former, and as things currently stand, he does not have the latter.”
There are more than 50 volunteer battalions in Ukraine. The civilian units, similar to armed militias, were formed at the beginning of the war in eastern Ukraine to support the regular Ukrainian military, which initially found itself ill-equipped to match the firepower of pro-Russian separatists.
“For 23 years the Ukrainian armed forces were plundered,” Khiraldo-Ramirez said. “We weren’t prepared for war, and a lot of our best men died.”
Battalions like the 318th are dedicated to territorial defense, while there are also special police battalions and some battalions that fall under the auspices of the Ukrainian National Guard.
An instructor speaks with new recruits. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)
Some volunteer battalions like the Azov Battalion, which operates out of Mariupol, and the Donbas Battalion, operating near Luhansk, are integrated into the regular army’s chain of command and have played a key role in the conflict.
“We thought that if we didn’t stop the separatists in the Donbas, they would come all the way to Kyiv,” said Maxim Masur, 25, who fought with the Aydar volunteer battalion near Luhansk in June 2014. “We heard that there were 50,000 Russian troops across the border at the time, and we were afraid of an all-out invasion.”
In March 2014, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Department of Defense officials estimated there were about 50,000 Russian troops bordering Ukraine and inside Crimea. Moscow said the troop buildup was part of a military exercise.
Some of the 318th Battalion’s recruits ultimately join other volunteer units and the regular army on the front lines. Their objective is to learn how to survive their first 10 days in combat, which, according to the conventional wisdom among Ukrainian soldiers, is a bellwether for a soldier’s long-term survivability and the threshold after which units accept new members as one of their own.
Mykhailo Khiraldo-Ramirez, a military instructor for the 318th Battalion, speaks to trainees about individual movement techniques. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)
The first mass mobilization of Ukrainian men for military service was in March 2014, and many soldiers drafted in the early stages of the war said they weren’t properly trained for combat, prompting the formation of volunteer battalions like the 318th, which focus on teaching draft-eligible men the skills they need to live.
According to multiple Ukrainian active duty and reserve officers, the regular army’s training program has improved since the first mobilization waves, but soldiers are still not receiving the training and equipment they need from a national military that is recovering from decades of financial neglect and an officer corps rife with corruption.
“If there is a general mobilization, we don’t think we would get the training we need,” Roman said, explaining the 318th Battalion’s mission. “We are learning skills to keep alive if we are called.”
Ukraine launched its fourth mass mobilization on Jan. 20, calling up 50,000 men between 18 to 27 years old, and there are plans for two more mobilization waves in April and June.
“Our most important requirement is the free will of our recruits,” Khiraldo-Ramirez said. “Selflessness, and the willingness to volunteer are the most important qualities for a soldier.”