9 a.m., training ground of the "Wolf" brigade. We were lucky with the weather. After a few days of rain, the sun finally came out from behind the clouds, but it was already cold like autumn. A combined platoon of one of the armies of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, after formation, immediately goes to the "trench" - a training place that imitates an enemy stronghold. A kind of final exam will be held here all day.

Examinees are participants of the special military operation who arrived at the training center for a training course to become instructors. This is their last day of training, and, as the team does, they will go to the training grounds and train personnel themselves in the special operation zone.

But before that, the final training of one of the most important elements of training - an assault battle in a trench. It should show what future instructors have learned in the course of an intensive and time-bound course: working with personal small arms, throwing live grenades, and most importantly, interaction in twos. The task is to reach the end of the zigzag trench by making a minimum number of mistakes. There is no time limit.

"Red" and "green"

Two cadets begin to fulfill the standard. Even before entering the trench, the first number opens fire on a conditional enemy. The soldiers, crouching, descend and advance along the trench until the first turn. One shoots while sitting, the other, above him, suppresses it with fire "in the Somali way" over the parapet. The cadets, shooting, run to the next turn.

One shouts, "Red!" and moves a little behind the second number, which covers his comrade until he changes stores. "Green!" the first one shouts again, and the deuce continues to move towards the next turn, firing in his direction.

The second number takes out a RGN (hand offensive grenade) from the pouch, shouts: "Ring" and throws it over the parapet around the corner, immediately sticking with the first number to the wall of the trench. «501, 502, 503...». An explosion and the deuce goes around the corner, opening fire as they go.

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"Red," the second number shouts, and now, while he's reloading, he's covered by the first. This is repeated several times until the two reaches the very end along the zigzags and forks.

Throughout the trench, the cadets are followed by an instructor with the call sign Philosopher, who tries to comment as little as possible on the actions of his students in the process. Its task is to ensure that the graduates of the training center themselves notice and analyze their mistakes. And after the completion of the mopping up of the trench from the conditional enemy, the cadets are really in a hurry to tell where they did not work as necessary, but where, on the contrary, they were able to navigate in time.

The instructor analyzes the mistakes twice: directly with the two who made them, and upon returning to the starting line, with the rest of the group, who also closely watched the actions of their comrades in the trench.

"I believe that we need thinking soldiers, from the private. Thinking! The Philosopher explains. "It's not the 18th century, where the corporal said and you have to do it by turning off your head. A cannonball flies at you, and you stand still and hold the line. War has become intellectual. You have to think about it."

The philosopher, like the rest of the instructors at the training center, is a veteran of more than one conflict. In 2022, he went to the NWO without hesitation.

Learning from the enemy

The training center is territorially located in the NWO zone and is structurally part of the Wolf brigade. Initially, it was used to train people who are already serving or are just coming to serve in the brigade under a contract. However, sometimes combined units from different formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are sent to the courses. Like the current group of this category of cadets, they are trained to become instructors.

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On the basis of the training center, they provide knowledge and skills in everything that assault infantry needs: sniper training, work with heavy infantry weapons, with group infantry weapons, engineering and sapper training and tactical medicine.

Returning from the trench with another deuce and sorting out its mistakes, the Philosopher takes out his phone and shows something on the screen to the cadets surrounding him.

"I've already sent it to you, but I'll repeat it. Here is Andrey Markin, a veteran of Vympel, he has a series of books: "Infantryman's Handbook", "Accelerated Tactical Training" and separately, as an addition, "Album of Tactical Schemes". It clearly describes the issues of training, and just at the level from small groups through squads to platoons and companies. That is, the whole way is just from the combat twos," the Philosopher explains and points to the trench, thereby once again emphasizing the importance of the element being worked out.

Wolf instructors also use the enemy's experience in training. Recently, as the Philosopher notes, a lot of translated trophy literature of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has appeared in the public domain, which he also shares with his cadets.

Handbook of Territorial Defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Designed for squad commanders, platoon commanders, company commanders," Philosopher reads loudly from his phone and looks up at the cadets again. "So, again, it's an infantry base. Everything has been translated into Russian. And it's fresh. Kyiv, 23 years old. And again, look at how the enemy works, what he learns, how he works, what to expect from him."

"Thank you, Commander!"

Working out the standard lasts for several hours, until lunch. Deuce after deuce goes through the trench "on cartridge and with live grenades". Then eating and getting ammo, and again a few hours of storming the trench. Each cadet goes through it three times, and the people in the deuces are constantly changing so that the fighters learn to interact with any partner.

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The sun begins to set, and for the last time for the day, the soldiers come out of the trench with the Philosopher. The final exam can be considered over. There are no grades, only the latest instructions from the instructor. He congratulates the wards not so much on the completion of the training course, but on the visible result of their joint work.

"It has begun to work out," the Philosopher states. Addressing his now former wards, who will soon become instructors themselves, he asks them not to get lost and to keep in touch. This is very important for the instructors of the Wolf Brigade.

As the Philosopher explained to me later, in addition to the fact that you want to continue communication not only because the instructors of the "Wolf" are humanly worried about the people who pass through them, there is also a moment of accumulation of experience.

"Because you can't get all the experience on your own, from what I bring to people, my personal experience is not so much, it's not such a large percentage. I'm not a great warrior, I'm not a veteran of everything, no," says the Philosopher. "But I know how to listen to other people. And from this, some kind of element base is assembled, which I then put on the shelves and analyze. Therefore, we try to exchange contacts, try to keep in touch."

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After the end of the Philosopher's parting speech, the cadets come up to him to say goodbye: each wants to personally shake hands with the teacher and say: "Thank you, commander!"