Ukraine Lessons for SOF in Large Scale Combat Operations – Planning and Maneuver Operations
“We have to cancel tonight’s training mission.” The Ukrainian company commander of the unit we were instructing told us late in the afternoon. We were speechless. We had been planning this culminating exercise for two weeks. I asked why and he said the buses to take the company to Bakhmut arrive in the morning. Fast forward a month and we received a text from a SOF company commander we had trained who was sitting in a trench in Bakhmut. He asked if we had an English translation of a French/German Milan anti-armor weapon instructions manual. He had received the weapon with a manual in French and his internet coverage was spotty when he tried to look it up on YouTube. Such are the challenges training and advising partner forces in Ukraine.