Ukrainian Soldiers Picking Up Skills To Fight Russia — From YouTube
(DailyVantage.com) – When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, many people thought President Vladimir Putin and his forces would take the country in a matter of days. The Ukrainians resisted with resilience, showing a willingness to fight that has kept them in the battle and turned the tide for the last eight-plus months. The defending troops have become quite handy, taking in new skills, some from an unlikely place.
According to NPR, in the early days of the war, two army reservists engaged in delivering anti-tank missiles to their soldiers north of Kyiv. When their superiors ordered Stas Volovyk and Anatoliy Nikitin to fire one of the weapons at oncoming Russian tanks, the two men found themselves stumped. After all, they’d never handled, let alone fired, one before. So the soldiers did what any person in modern times would do — they hid from the danger and looked up YouTube videos on the weapon.
Ukrainian soldiers have had to adapt quickly and learn new skills as the course of the war has changed — even resorting to watching YouTube videos to figure out how to fire anti-tank missiles. https://t.co/ZGt2Rsb9Nv
— NPR (@NPR) November 3, 2022
Even though the reservists figured out the process via the online video platform, the two never needed to fire the missiles — though they were close to doing so. It’s a good thing the forces held back because the approaching tanks weren’t Russian. They were Ukrainian.
Still, the episode illustrates just one example of Ukrainian soldiers learning on the fly. Nikitin remembers the early start being chaotic. “It’s lucky for us that the Russians were more chaotic than us,” he said. They had valuable time to adapt and learn new skills, such as operating drones, which have become significant players in battles, and digging trenches for protection.
These methods are working for the defenders because not only has Ukraine not fallen as many observers predicted, but the defending country is regaining lost ground in many battles — and inspiring people worldwide with its ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome.
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