The goal of the Australian instructors is to increase the survivability of their trainees.

Ukrainian soldiers are undergoing a gory, ultra-realistic training in the United Kingdom. A contingent of 70 Australian soldiers has been stationed in Britain since January, rigorously preparing 20,000 Ukrainian recruits to be battle-ready on the killing fields in east Ukraine.

In one particularly graphic exercise, Ukrainian soldiers applied a tourniquet to a leg that appeared to be blown off as the ‘injured’ man yelled in agony clutching his wound.

In another exercise, a wounded soldier had to be carried to safety.

Australian soldiers from the 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, deployed on Operation Kudu trained Ukrainians in tactical survival skills by spending days out in the open of an unidentified southern England woodlands, the Daily Mail writes.

The Ukrainians also spent time practicing the deadly skirmishes that typically happen in their own woodlands daily, as soldiers confront each other at close quarters.

The training we are providing is to increase the survivability of the trainees when they go back to Ukraine,’

a training officer said.

In March, Ukrainian recruits were put through other realistic battlefield environments as they received training in trench warfare.

The Ukrainians were taught how to create a system of trenches even while fatigued, but they were also trained to conduct reconnaissance missions of enemy positions and offensive patrolling.

‘We have been probing them sporadically through the night to further their fatigue levels and to simulate the kinds of situations they may see in the coming weeks,’ an Australian platoon commander said.

The training is realistic and demanding – it mimics the high-stress and high-stakes environment which the trainees will need to be able to operate effectively in,

he added.

The bulk of the training provided to the Ukrainians in the UK is being delivered by British soldiers, but there are also contingents of military trainers from New Zealand, Canada, Sweden and Finland.

Training is apparently very badly needed. As V4NA recently reported, the average lifespan of soldiers deployed on the bloodiest front line is mere four hours.

In February, a former US marine, who is fighting alongside the Ukrainian army in the Donbas, told ABC News that soldiers stand no chance to survive the fighting in the vicinity of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian city, which is almost totally destroyed.

The average lifespan of a soldier on the east Ukrainian front line is four hours, he said.

The soldier called the situation around Bakhmut “chaotic” and dubbed it “the meat grinder”.

About half a thousand troops could have died in the fighting near Bakhmut over the last few days alone.

On Saturday, both Ukraine and Russia reported that hundreds of enemy soldiers have been killed over the past 24 hours in the battle for Bahmut, with Kyiv withstanding ongoing attacks and the small river that bisects the city now marking the new front line.

Ukrainian military spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi said that 221 pro-Moscow soldiers were killed and more than 300 were injured in Bakhmut, while the Russian defence ministry reported that the fighting in the wider Donetsk section of the front line could have claimed the lives of 210 Ukrainian soldiers.