A New Zealand Army veteran has joined the ranks of Westerners who travelled to Ukraine to train thousands of volunteers how to hold and shoot a gun as the war wages on.
The former soldier served for six years specialising in logistics, with experience in Iraq as part of the New Zealand training team.
The man, who RNZ agreed not to name, is now in Lviv after travelling from Aotearoa to help the Ukrainian war effort.
He thought there were roughly 300,000 refugees on the streets of Lviv, maybe more, as they arrived daily.
"These are ridiculously strong people, the spirit is indomitable."
Each day, volunteer trainers leave the city to an undisclosed training ground where they hand in their mobile phones to the local district commander.
The veteran said this was an essential measure after Russia bombed a shooting range earlier in the week, killing 35 and injuring more than 100 others.
A funeral ceremony for four Ukrainian military servicemen killed during an airstrike on a military base in Yavoriv. Photo / AP
"I felt that the other morning, because it's only 30km from here, I was actually woken up by the blast."
He believed it became a target after geo-locations from mobile phones pinged at the site, alerting Russia to their whereabouts.
They were also battling a constant problem of infiltrators feeding information back to the Russians, he said.
The training team he was working with was small but growing steadily, although they were light on resources, he said.
Because it was a volunteer operation, it was hard to equip people with helmets, body armour and weapons, but they had a simple training focus.
"Everything from basic weapon handling to tactics, you know, within peers, but also within small number of soldiers, between two and 14 soldiers, teaching them to operate within their groups.
A Ukrainian soldier embraces a member of his family about to board a bus for Poland. Photo / AP
"Hopefully, they can pass that knowledge on to others"
He thought about 90 per cent of the volunteers had no military experience at all, and those who did were not necessarily prepared for combat or a real-life war scenario.
"We are training on different AK [rifle] variants, there's nothing heavier than that ... these guys are just at such a basic level."
They were also limited because of supply issues, a problem that stretched into the front line.
"I know guys that are actually fighting on the front lines who haven't even got a weapon.
"Some of them who have had to take weapons from fallen soldiers, because otherwise there's nothing else."
What was out there was also very low quality from overseas donators, he said.
But the volunteers were determined to learn and committed to fighting against the Russian army for their country.
Ukrainian soldiers help a fleeing family crossing the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Instead of leaving, they were staying to defend their home, he said, with tens of thousands waiting for training.
"A lot of these guys are motivated by the fact that they've got family and friends in the east or in the north who were actually suffering because they're close to the front lines or in occupied towns, and these guys just want to learn to fight, so they can do their best, very patriotic people.
"These guys take the training very seriously, much more than any other group I've ever trained. They just want to do their best to defend their homeland."
When asked why he left New Zealand and headed to a war zone, the veteran said he felt he had to help.
"I got in touch with a lot of people all coming to Ukraine for various reasons. Some of them wanted to come and fight, some of them wanted to come deliver humanitarian aid. I think others just wanted to be war tourists.
