Meet the private Canadian instructors training Ukraine's assault troops

After months of bloody near-stalemate, Ukraine's 15-month defensive war against the Russian invasion looks to be approaching a new inflection point.

Last Sunday, Ukrainian forces launched a series of attacks in what Western officials said were likely the opening moves of a wide-ranging summer offensive aimed at recapturing large swaths of Russian-held territory. 

Combat increased in intensity over the course of the week, as Western-donated main battle tanks were sighted on the battlefield for the first time.

Many of the Ukrainian soldiers taking part in this offensive have been trained by NATO member countries, including Canada — and not just by the Canadian military, but by private groups as well.

It was a sunny spring morning when CBC visited a nondescript stretch of fields near the city of Konstantinivka, in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. There, a series of military exercises was underway.

A half-dozen Ukrainian recruits stand huddled in a circle, listening to a pair of Canadian military instructors. 

Their small outfit, Sabre Training and Advisory Group, has partnered with a number of Ukrainian units — in this case, the 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade — to pass them the skills necessary for upcoming battles.

The head instructor, Kevin Leach, explains the next exercise in surprisingly proficient Ukrainian, only occasionally pausing to ask the Ukrainian translation of specific words. 

"The goal of this exercise is to practise contact with the enemy and action under fire," Leach says, before picking two men to each lead a team of three in the mock assault.

The six men fan out in the field, advancing slowly in two staggered columns, their rifles sweeping the terrain. They make it about 50 metres before Leach suddenly bellows at them.

"Contact. Five assholes," Leach yells in Ukrainian, prompting the Ukrainians to drop to the ground and begin shouting the "bang-bang" noises that indicate they would be firing their weapons. One of the columns continues to advance slowly, but the other is unsure and hesitates. Co-ordination is lost.

Leach looks at the other Canadian instructor, Jean Proulx, a long-haired Montreal native. 

"There's a lot to teach," Leach says.

Monitoring the conflict

Leach himself has a long history of both working in Ukraine and in military affairs.

A Canadian Armed Forces veteran, Leach served from 2008 to 2018 as a sergeant, specializing in armoured reconnaissance. 

He then moved to Kyiv, where he has lived with his Ukrainian wife for the past five years. Most of that time has been spent working with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), where Leach assisted with the group's conflict monitoring activities along the line of contact in Donbas. 

Once the Russian invasion struck, he initially worked in gathering and transporting humanitarian supplies to Ukraine, launching the Project Volya initiative together with another volunteer. Eventually, he decided his skill set could best help Ukraine in another way.

"I first had this thought [to help with military training] in August," Leach says. 

"I got involved then with another training organization, but it was just terribly run. It had a very low standard, not up to NATO equivalency at all." 

'The ball got rolling'

After a few months, Leach had had enough. In November, he decided to found his own organization, and Sabre was born. 

"We started out with four instructors, but it was a bit haphazard — it wasn't until after Christmas that we really got our personnel settled and got going," Leach says. 

"So we started making trips out east, getting contacts, meeting people and the ball got rolling." 

It was from these informal contacts that the group's training missions were arranged. Leach says he has no contact with the Ukrainian government — "no one would pick up the phone if we tried [to reach them]" — and Sabre instead made its own connections with units that then requested training.

The men of the 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade are clearly happy to have Sabre's support.

Anton, a 27-year old reservist in the brigade who asked to be identified only by his first name, says he was given very little official training prior to his first deployment — a stint near Bakhmut in the fall that he barely survived.

"We had almost nothing practical [in terms of training]," Anton says. 

"We had a week or two of theoretical stuff. Then we were sent to the front. I managed to live through it — many of us didn't — but now [with Sabre] it finally feels like I'm learning how to be a real soldier." 

In the hottest zones

Sabre has spent time with Ukrainian units near some of the front line's hottest combat zones. 

Since April, the group has largely been based near Vuhledar, the site of several massive failed Russian armoured assaults in January and February, where they have worked with Ukraine's 68th Jaeger Brigade. 

The group has also trained Ukrainian personnel guarding diplomatic institutions in Kyiv, all while operating on a shoestring budget — "a few thousand dollars in donations, just enough for food and fuel," Leach says. 

Leach estimates that about 800 Ukrainian servicemen have received training from Sabre to date.

And it is clear that much of the training being provided is highly relevant to the coming phase of the war — attacking and trying to seize territory from the Russian enemy.

Back in Konstantinivka, a larger group of about two dozen Ukrainian recruits is conducting another exercise — this time, practising what's known as "bounding overwatch," the act of moving forward in staggered groups while providing covering fire to suppress enemy troops.

"If you're moving, it's got to be fast and aggressive," shouts Proulx, reprimanding one of the recruits who was indecisive in his movements. 

"The guys who are prone are the ones who lay down the covering fire, not you. You are to be moving as fast as possible," says Proulx, who is also a Canadian Armed Forces veteran.

'How you stay alive'

"Once you make contact, there are three steps," Leach tells the recruits. 

"Take cover, return fire and gain fire superiority. That's how you stay alive. Let's run it again," he says, as the Ukrainians move back into starting positions.

Leach is coy on what little he knows of Ukraine's now-underway offensive. 

"I only know what I need to know," he says with a smile. But he is confident in the troops he's trained.

"They now know how to approach an enemy position, how to storm it and how to consolidate it," Leach says. 

In the coming weeks, the rest will be up to them.