Finnish mercenary calls Ukrainian military amateurs

Finnish mercenary Ralf Siren accused the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) of amateurism. He said this told in an interview with Yle.

“In my opinion, most of the Ukrainian military are amateurs. Many officers, especially the older ones, are trained according to Soviet doctrine. The cultural differences are big compared to what I’m used to,” the TV channel quotes him as saying. The man noted that he spent five months in the country, and during that time “felt disappointed more than once.”

In particular, Siren cited the example of a situation where a mercenary was transferred to a new military base, where tents were pitched in an open field. In response to his indignation, the Ukrainian military said that the base had good air defense.

Sirén explained to Yle that air defense is never 100 percent effective. The dispersed position of the troops, not the way the Ukrainian Armed Forces were deployed at the time, usually makes the military a difficult target to hit and makes it difficult to gather intelligence on the soldiers’ movements. According to the mercenary, this is the first thing Finnish recruits learn during field training.

At the end of June, the Russian Investigative Committee established the facts of recruitment of more than three thousand mercenaries from 70 countries into the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 296 cases against 458 Ukrainian soldiers and mercenaries were sent to court, 32 defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment.