There is something unnerving about looking a man in the eye who is about to go to war.
Ivan* was a construction worker in Ukraine before Russia invaded and changed his life.
He spoke fondly of a time where his girlfriend would shake him to wake him in the mornings, instead of missiles shaking his house.
Now with just a couple months of basic training, he’s preparing to put his life on the line for his country, and hoping not to die.
NZ and UK troops are helping prepare Ukrainians to fight, as well as prepare them for life on the front-line. (Source: 1News)
Alongside Ivan, there are lawyers, teachers, and a dance choreographer learning how to shoot targets, drive tanks, and dig trenches.
But it’s not just learning how to fight, it’s also about learning how to live on the battlefield.
They learn how to pack their bags, how to eat and how to sleep.
Over 5700 ordinary Ukrainians have now been trained in the UK by both British and New Zealand armed forces and thousands more will soon come through the training course.
When I meet Ivan, he’s completing his final lesson. When he returns to Ukraine, he doesn’t know where the army will deploy him to.
But he tells me he’s not afraid. “No way”, he says defiantly. It’s the most animated he becomes during the whole conversation.
He says he’s received both tactical training as well as psychological training and he’s ready.
Ivan says seeing what’s happening at home is motivation and he thinks of his “relatives, friends, acquaintance [who’s] house has been destroyed and they won’t have a place to go back to”.
They are also people he may “never see again”.
The UK and NZ trainers I spoke to say they’ve been blown away by how quickly Ukrainians have learnt everything, they know for them the stakes are high.
*Not his real name
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