Frost grips the training grounds of Kyiv region as veterans give civilians basic military skills

Описание: (8 Feb 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kyiv region, Ukraine - 8 February 2026
1. Various of people taking part in military training, running through trenches and sliding down snow-covered hills as instructors giving them advice and sounds of gunfire and explosions are heard
2. Close of participants and smoke
3. Instructor kicking snow on participants and shouting
4. Various of participants crawling under fallen tree branch
5. Participants climbing snow-covered hill
6. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Oleksandr Yehorov, veteran and senior instructor:
"Because I was in the military I understand how important these military skills are. Basic, small military skills are needed not only by soldiers but also by civilians because, unfortunately, we have an enemy who doesn’t care about civilians, about children or women. They kill everyone. That’s why everyone in our country should be able to know and have basic military training skills, for what may come next. And if we’re talking about girls and women protecting the country - no, first of all it’s about protecting their own families and their children.”
7. Various of participants crawling on snow-covered ground under barbed wire during drill
8. Various of participants climbing over wooden obstacles
going beneath infantry obstacles
9. Various of participants shooting fake rifles
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Olefirenko Bennett Milana, training participant:
"I’m here because it's every Ukrainian's responsibility to come help their country and to train and be ready for an emergency. You need to know this knowledge if you're going to live here."
11. Various of training participants during tactical training drill in forest
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Olefirenko Bennett Milana, training participant:
"My biggest hope? That we'll have peace again at the 1991 borders so I can go home."
13. Various of training participants during tactical training drill in forest
14. Various of participants simulating rescue action of injured soldier and carrying out medical
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Anastasiia Korenivska, training participant:
"And I really wanted to try this experience, just to understand them more, to understand how to help our country more even like when you're not in a military zone you're, not actually, you don't have to think that you're safe in your home because you don't t know do you have your tomorrow or not."
16. Various of training participants during drill to rescue injured soldier
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Anastasiia Korenivska, training participant:
"Dream, of course, that the war will stop, all our military guys will return to their home, to their parents, to their loved people. And that we will not be the same, but to live same happily as we lived before the full scale."
18. Various of training participants during drill to rescue injured soldier
STORYLINE:
On Sunday, the first Ukrainian basic national resistance course of 2026 reached its final test.

For an entire month, 80 civilians trained side by side with combat veterans — not in classrooms, but on open ranges and muddy fields.

They studied 15 disciplines: first aid under fire, tactics, marksmanship, UAV operations, communications, military English, and international humanitarian law.

Every lesson was practical.

The training is voluntary and free. And it’s already proven its scale.

In 2024 and 2025, the Kyiv Regional National Resistance Training Center prepared more than 10,000 civilians using this model.

Among the trainees are students, volunteers, and professionals from entirely different fields.











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