Canadian soldiers return home after training counterparts from Ukraine

From sun up to sun down, six days a week, soldiers from the Army’s High Readiness Engineer Unit have been training counterparts in Ukraine.

Those involved say their days have been filled with lectures and practical work – skills that are aimed towards a bigger mission.

“If I can’t be with them on the battlefield, the next best thing I can do is at least give them some breath of experience and some safety to help them take back their homeland,” said Master Cpl. Matthew Claridge, who was a member with the engineer training element.

Since October, the 4 Engineer Support Regiment has been deploying combat engineer soldiers to Poland under Operation UNIFIER to support a polish-led training program for the security forces of Ukraine.

“There’s a wide array of soldiers that we worked with, some were brand new recruits and some were seasoned soldiers who had been fighting for sometime and we offered different things to each,” said Cpl. David Greene.

He says during his time there, he was working in counter explosive threats. The day-to-day included exercises surrounding threat lanes, basic search, defensive position and fundamentals.

“For newer soldiers, it would be things they’ve never seen before, such as the application of the equipment like I said or marking your safe lanes and then with the more experience soldiers, we would show them a different way to do things,” he said.

Adding, “a lot of what we did and what I do, because I’ve done this for some time, is I help people have confidence in their plan because at some point you need to take that first step, take that first bound and never think that just because you made a plan that you can’t back track.”

Overall, the training assignment was designed to provide extra tools and knowledge.

“They’re dealing heavily with a lot of antipersonnel mines and mines in general and the skills that we’re teaching them, it’s just going to give them that little bit of extra safety to know how to recognize and deal with these emissions while on the battlefield and then later on, down the road, when they have to start de-mining,” said Claridge.

Adding, “Just for my team alone, we trained over 400 Ukrainian students.”

Both Claridge and Greene were in Poland for about four months and returned home to New Brunswick earlier this week.

The pair says they were happy to have the opportunity to contribute in anyway that they could.

“I could say that the news and the media and the clips online are just the tip of the iceberg and what these people are going through is just absolutely horrendous, but they’re so determined,” said Greene.

“Like these people are so determined to protect their own and just help.”

While they are both looking forward to some time off to process and reflect, what they left behind has already proving to be significant.

“Some guys are still in contact with some of them that are over there dealing with everything and they’re still there, they’re keeping us up to date, letting us know what’s going on, so it’s great to see,” said Claridge.

“We also have intel coming back from them using the skills and the kit that we gifted to them when they were leaving and they’re using it and they’re disposing things properly, so it’s really great to see that what we’re doing there wasn’t for nothing and they’re actually using the skills.”

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