Ukraine’s secret army in France

THREE UKRAINIAN soldiers, clutching Soviet-made AKM assault rifles, creep stealthily along zig-zagging trenches. In the distance, enemy soldiers are moving in the woods. Gunfire crackles across the plain. Plumes of smoke rise into the cold air. Tiny drones hover overhead. It is an all-too familiar scene from a war that drags on along Europe’s eastern fringe. Except that this simulation is taking place at an undisclosed site in eastern France, where the French army is playing the enemy and training over 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers to form the backbone of a combined-arms brigade ready for deployment at the front.