A Ukrainian reserve worker learns combat skills that he hopes never to use

Now Alice is worried that she can use those skills in a real war with Russia.

People die, that's terrible. Even worse is when you think not only about your life, but about the life of a 7-year-old child”, she said in an interview for Reuters.

The gathering of tens of thousands of troops from Russia near the Ukrainian borders has sparked fears in Ukraine and in Western countries that it is willing to invade, something Moscow denies.

Alice joined the territorial defence forces a year and a half ago. She said she has seen dozens of young people joining training sessions every Saturday.

She started out this weekend as she often does, wearing her camouflage suit, taking one of her two small calibre guns that she keeps at home and going to a training field, a pine forest of sand dunes, an old railway and several abandoned shipyards, follows Clancosova. tv

Along with dozens of other volunteers, mostly men in their late 30s and 40s with civil work, she later spent seven hours or with her gun to the ground or on guard as part of a small patrol loaded to protect a concrete building from enemy designers.

She said that the fact that she has at least basic training is some comfort.

If, God save us, starts a war... I know how to switch from an uncertain point A to a safe point B. I know how to help Timur, friends, neighbors if they're caught by fire “, Alice said.

Alice said she likes to acquire new skills that have built her confidence and courage, but she hopes she never needs to use them.

I feel anger, hate, and have canceled my plans. It's all surreal to me and I don't understand how such crazy things can happen in a civilized world in the 21”, she said.