Ukrainian veterans are prepared for the institute leadership

The patch of the armed forces of Ukraine. (Kirill Chubotin / Ukrinform / Future Issuance via Getti Images)

Future publication via GETTI Images

Nothing about a dozen men and women gathered in the summer Saturday in the Nondescript classroom in the center of Kiev signaled who they are. Pale, skinny women in Punkish blackly mixed comfortably with Beefish men in birth clothes. AGES started from the early 20s to late middle years. They greeted warmly and shared several jokes as they squeezed into plastic chairs and waited for their instructor.

What they had in common: all the Ukrainian veterans decided to participate in the program to prepare for future management, whether in government, non-profit organizations or community settings – any initiative, as in Ukraine programs. “

Almost nobody in Ukraine expects to be peace soon – they do not believe that Vladimir Putin will bring peace until he achieves his goal of submitting his southern neighbor. But in combating the nation to break free of Russian influence, throughout the European Democracy, the future of the country is on all the mind – that is what they are fighting and die for – and it’s never too early to think about the renewal.

One assessment of the leading parliamentary suggests that it can be 3 million Veterans until the moment the war ends, perhaps 10% of the population and is expected to play a major role in the country’s reshaping. But there are also a lot of labels in question, including xering social division between those who have and did not take weapons against Russia.

The Defenders Leadership Center placed on KIIV-MOCHIL UNIVERSITYThe small, elite school in the heart of the capital, offers a window of this generation that will inherit Ukraine in the years after the war.

The intensive program encourages the generation to reshape the country after the war

Most participants in the program keep jobs workplaces, another quarter still in the military. But they find the time to attend the second evening evening per week and all day Saturday. The center offers traditional social or mental health services. It is a academic program that was mostly teaching volunteers from the Kiiv-Mohilo Faculty in Ukrainian history and literature, as well as public administration and strategic communications.

The goal, according to the center: to transfer the understanding of Ukrainian identity and political values, strengthening the feelings of soldiers of personal responsibility in the military. The spirit is patriotic, but intellectually rigorous. “We are openly talking about the weaknesses of the Ukrainian system,” my Cofaunder Ian Chapail explains, “with an emphasis on what the future leader can change them.”

Chapail and Colleague Kiev-Mohil Alum Mariya Savrn, as in the middle of the 30s with a blond hair, launched a program more than a year ago, knowing they were swimming on the tide. “All Ukraine are grateful to defense counsel,” explains former IT marketer Sanrun. “Without them, we wouldn’t be here. But there are a lot of misconceptions.” Some civilians think that all veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Chiefs hesitate to discipline them, so many human human resource managers to avoid employment. “We want to show people that you don’t need to be afraid of the topic,” Non is a non-profit manager Chapail tell me.

Cofaunters look like private donors to maintain the program, and in the first year, a little more than 100 veterans, who attend free. Two women say they make their approach as they go together, with the help of Kiev-Mohila Faculty and military advisers active. But the couple has solid views of a few things, starting from what veterans want and need.

“We don’t just hug them,” he explains the perfect. “We exist clear that there are rules that relate to them – and they respect discipline. We carefully select participants, and everyone here is motivated by the same things – a sense of responsibility for Ukraine’s future.”

Two former fighters know firsthand what should change

Timur Abdulin, 28, enters the classroom for 10 minutes late, tall, skinny man with a dark horse tail and abundance of tattoos. It takes only a few minutes to get into the conversation. Smile and charismatic, kind of natural leader, he represents the question whenever there is an opportunity and answers to every inquiry who said the instructor. Only later to learn how hard he had in the army in the early days of the war.

Even with a master’s degree and work experience as an IT manager, he struggled to find a unit that would accept it as a fighter. Then he finally secured the place, the commander of the water was sent. But it was difficult to take responsibility for two dozens of men, many of them much older, from different backgrounds. “I was only 25 and the only ones in the waters that could read the Excel spreadsheet,” he remembers.

It was transferred although a series of units, but none of them saw enough action for his taste, and he became everything frustrated with what he thought were given tasks. He felt the commander of the last unit in which he served intentionally mistreated him, and when his old mother became sick, she used the opportunity to get him out of the service. But now, two years later, he is persecuting him regret. “I didn’t do the best in the army,” he tells me, and he thinks every day about re-morning.

His friend, Liudmila Petrass, 35, is quietly in class, but is already very achieved in her field. A Paleen woman with dark hair and thick wedding, she knew as a child she wanted to practice medicine. When she could not afford to train as a doctor, she took courses in care and health management courses. When Russian fighters started a separatist rebellion in East Ukraine in 2014. years, she tried to enroll as paramedical. The army would not take it, but it served as a volunteer, providing a fronting guard and evacuating the wounded soldiers from some of the conflicts of the most gratifies.

Memories of memory for a moment when she didn’t feel she knew enough to give her the necessary care she started to continue her medical education after the war. He then found work in the training of others and, in the end, in the development of courses in the fight against care. Today, the director of tactical medical instructions on an influential non-profit organization is returned alive and is already working on the formation of the National Front Care Policy.

Otherwise, as well as those, two veterans have a lot in common. He asked what they were coming out of the Kiiv-Mohil program, both emphasize the feeling of community. “No one who has served us in the military understands,” Abdulin complains. “My friend who is a veteran-doctor-tried to get a job in the hospital, and only what the employment manager wanted it to know was” How much did Russians killed? “

Abdulin is not sure to see the point of all themes covered by the Kiiv-Mohil program. But what it did was worth it for him was the “community of veterans”. “People here are very different” He tells me, “different centuries and all walks of life. But we all went through the same thing and understand each other.”

Both Abdulin and Pausetti also share strong opinions about what is wrong with the Ukrainian army. They both had trouble finding their place in the armed forces and positions they could fully use their talents.

They both fought what they saw as a blinking, “Soviet-style” commanders, was more directed to the rules and what their chiefs would think, but on the task they were commanded. One of the largest grappings of the pautées is about the blindness of the army towards gender issues – says that several jobs were rejected for which it was more than qualified.

Most damn, both complain, the army is not open enough on new ideas. “It is impossible to change the system inside in the system”, claims Power. “That’s why I never actually joined the armed forces. I worked everything like a volunteer.”

Motivated men and women decided to advance reform

Their strongest connection: both veterans share the consumption of the reform for Ukrainian military reform – command structures and its access to medical care.

Power is good on the way to achieve your goal. He has a vision of what is needed and a clear plan to get there. At the time of the Drone War, says, you can’t leave the fight against specialized staff, whether the doctors or paramedicines. Every soldier must know the basics, and every third fighter should be more qualified-trained “combat keeper of life”. When I get back to live, she returned to understand this dream and allied networks.

Abdulin’s plans are still shaped. He wants to return to the army first and prove, ideally in a specialized elite unit. But in contrast to the pautées, it is convinced that it can improve the change from within. “If we want to change this country,” we need to go through the government, “and he asks for lawyers in his current job, government initiative to support the entrepreneurs of the defense industry.

Nobody at the center of Braiiv-Mohila defenders – neither the couples nor the veterans I met – they have no idea when the war will end. But they can’t wait to start shaping what will come after. “Now there’s a lot of work,” Sakren tells me. “These people want to change agents – that’s why they’re here. Our job is to encourage them and to them.”