Handwritten Instructions in Ukrainian on How to Use Brit-made Anti-Tank System Found in DPR

The UK has sent over 4,000 NLAW (‘Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon’) fire-and-forget missile systems to Ukraine over the past three months. Earlier this month, UK defence chief Ben Wallace revealed in a prank call that London had sent so many NLAWs to Ukraine that its army was “running out of our own”.

A Sputnik correspondent has obtained the diary of a Ukrainian officer containing detailed instructions on the use of the NLAW anti-tank system.

The diary, found in the Ukrainian city of Volnovakha –the site of fierce battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces, belonged to a junior sergeant of the Ukrainian Army’s 3rd Airborne Troops Battalion. It contains four pages of notes packed with information on how to use the NLAW, plus technical characteristics, detailed descriptions on all of its main components, and options for preparing the weapon for combat and fire scenarios.

Other documents obtained alongside the diary show that its owner underwent training at the Ukrainian National Academy of the Ground Forces since 2016. In 2018, he completed a British Royal Tank Regiment-run training course. The soldier was also said to have studied English, focusing on military terminology and communications with NATO forces.

Officially, the UK only admitted to sending NLAWs to Ukraine starting in January.

Last week, the Volnovakha-based correspondent found a training certificate signed by a Col. M. Evans, commander of Operational ORBITAL, the UK training mission in Ukraine, dated October-November 2018 and presented to a Ukrainian serviceman on the completion of a weapons training, navigation, medical aid and pairs movement course.

In a video call with Russian pranksters earlier this month, UK Defence chief Ben Wallace revealed that the UK had been training Ukrainian troops “over the last five years” as part of Britain’s push to prepare Ukraine’s military to fight along NATO standards as quickly as possible.

Designed by Sweden’s Saab Bofors Dynamics and produced by Thales Air Defence, the NLAW is the British military’s primary man-portable anti-tank system. In addition to the UK and Ukraine, the system is operated by Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Indonesia and Malaysia.

When the UK formally announced the start of deliveries of NLAWs to Ukraine in January, Forbes predicted that the short-range missile system and others like it would likely be of limited value to Kiev under Russia’s ‘non-contact warfare’ military doctrine, which emphasises the destruction of enemy forces from long distances with artillery and airpower.