Are the military reports from the US and UK about the futility of training the Ukrainian military genuine?

Almost simultaneously, photographs of documents from the American and British military departments about the results of Ukrainian military training in the UK appeared on the Internet. According to reports, the Ukrainian military does not even reach the basic level of training by NATO standards. We have verified the authenticity of these documents.

Photos of reports from the US and British armies appeared on the Internet about a week apart. American first report, supposedly anonymously leaked onto the Internet, spread across Russian blogs and Telegram-channels. VKontakte group “Great Russia - this country cannot be defeated” commented document: “The report says that fire and tactical training among Ukrainians is very poor, the level of morale and motivation is low. But they learn medicine well, I want to live, I suppose.” A few days later another one hit the Internet report, but already the British Army. Someone supposedly sent it to the editor USSA News. The news was picked up by Telegram-channels And users social networks. The British report states that “Ukrainians failed to pass even the first level of NATO basic training.”

Both reports - American and British - assess the contingent of Ukrainian military personnel who underwent military training in the UK in July-August 2022. From the beginning of July UK accepts Ukrainian military for training according to UK basic military training standards. Each course lasts several weeks.

Both reports highlight the inability of the Ukrainian military to achieve even a primitive level of military training by NATO standards. In American report It is written: “According to data received from instructors and consultants, Ukrainian military personnel were unable to achieve even the lowest military standards in close combat exercises and physical education. Moreover, shooting training is no better. Comprehensive NATO and US military training standards are unattainable for 95% of trainees. Ukrainian soldiers failed to learn how to use American and British assault rifles and light machine guns, respectively. Thus, the local command had to request the provision of Soviet-style small arms. Namely, the local command approved the purchase of copies of AK assault rifles and Zastava assault rifles (made in the former Yugoslavia, Serbia). This has led to a significant and unplanned increase in UK military spending this year."

British document — this is supposedly a response to someone’s letter, in which the author expressed concern about the quality and effectiveness of Ukrainian military training in the UK. Responding to the letter, the British Army Secretariat purportedly writes: “Your concerns may be that the Ukrainian military is not achieving Phase 1 UK/NATO basic military skills levels. <…> Regarding your comment about the necessary improvements to the accelerated basic training course, I cannot guarantee changes, since the command is completely satisfied with the current state of affairs. Moreover, this event is aimed at raising the morale of the warring Ukrainian units, and in this it is very effective. Nevertheless, the service is very grateful to you for your professional report.”

In both documents, parts of the text are painted over in black, apparently to hide highly sensitive dates, names and details of the briefing. Judging by the fact that we were unable to find publicly available documents without editing, the data was painted over by the person who posted the supposedly confidential documents on the Internet. The British military department does the same thing - it paints over the personal data of the addressee when it publishes its answers to citizens' requests. The difference is that the Department of Defense releases non-confidential documents in accordance with by law on freedom of information. And the authors of news about the Ukrainian military allegedly illegally leaked secret documents, for some reason, by analogy, coloring out some details. Readers can only guess what secret skills were taught to Ukrainians in the UK.

Both documents raise many questions. For example, for some reason the American report was written on a form Development Counseling Form, which is used to document consultations conducted by a commander with his subordinates to improve their performance or behavior. For some reason, the title of the form, instructions for filling out, personal data of the boss and subordinate, some dates and the inscription “p. 1 of 2" at the bottom of the form. The text itself contains many lexical and stylistic errors. For example, English never uses the backslash (\) to write dates. Used as a place value separator (separates thousands from hundreds) in the number 10,000. comma, not a period. The text mentions the term “physical education” several times, which sounds strange in the context of military skills (rather, it should be physical training, that is, “physical training”).

In the paragraph about medical training, seven errors were made: “I have to admit that the medical instruction results (the verb “are” is missing) considered being (there should be an infinitive “to be” instead of the gerund being) on ​​(the article “a” is missing) high level. Ukrainian troops show (missing the article “a”) good knowledge and skills in handling (extra preposition “with”) with (missing the article “the”) wounded and coping (missing the preposition “with”) injuries” (Literally in Russian this can be translated as: “I must admit that the results of medical briefing are considered to be at a high level. The Ukrainian military demonstrates good knowledge and skills in helping with the wounded and overcoming injuries.”)

Finally, the text uses non-existent terms. For example, "Joint NATO Rapid Response Forces". Apparently, we are talking about the NATO Response Force (NATO Response Force), which in Russian are usually translate as "NATO Rapid Reaction Force".

There are also many inconsistencies in the British document. For example, the British Army called "British Army", not "British Royal Army". Instead of the expression “raise the morale” it is written “raise the moral”. In several cases the American spelling of words is used instead of the British one. For example, defense (instead of defense) and authorized (instead of authorized). Like the American document, the British letter also contains the backslash (UK\NATO), which in English is used only in mathematical formulas and computer code.

With a high degree of probability, it can be argued that both of these documents were written by people for whom English is not their native language. And, judging by the strange format, these people are not related to the US or UK armed forces.

We were able to find the earliest mention of an American document in the Russian Telegram channel “Operational reports", and the British one - on the website USSA News. Most likely, they became the sources of fake documents about the unfitness of the Ukrainian military.

Cover image: blog chervonec-001

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Lead Stories. Fact Check: 'Leaked Letter' Shows Clear Signs It Did NOT Come From UK Ministry Of Defense
2. Is it true that the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed the death of 48,759 military personnel in Ukraine?