British Army to train a further 180 Ukrainian soldiers in mental health first aid

The British Army will be training a further 180 Ukrainian soldiers to be combat mental resilience practitioners next year, building on the 100 who were successfully trained in 2024.

Army specialists are running the Combat Stress Signposting Course (CSSC) for Ukrainian soldiers as part of Operation Interflex.

Once the trainees become control stress operators they will be able to help their colleagues deal with the strain of combat when they head to the frontline.

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The CSSC training was initiated at the request of the Ukrainian defence ministry's Moral and Psychological Support Department following a rise in recruits reporting exposure to trauma and struggles with their mental health.

The five-week course equips soldiers with battle shock management techniques for before and during combat, as well as trauma risk management and signposting for clinical support following the fight.

"The Ukrainian people are fighting with huge courage to defend their country, and it is our duty to put them in the strongest possible position," said Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard.

"With hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers receiving mental health first aid training before returning to the frontline, resilience can be spread throughout the ranks of those fighting Russia's illegal invasion."

Operation Interflex has currently trained more than 51,000 Ukrainian troops in frontline combat skills in the UK.

When it began in June 2022, just a few months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the majority of the trainees who came to the UK had little to no combat experience and were civilians.

As the war continued, this picture has changed, and increasing numbers of trainees have now experienced combat or the trauma of war.

In September 2023, the trainees who attended Interflex had the most combat experience to date at that point, with 91% of that training cohort having prior experience.

Around 91% of them had experienced indirect fire, 69% had experienced close-quarters combat and 74% had treated battlefield casualties.

The impression was the group was combat-fatigued, with several showing signs of having mental health issues.

The CSSC course was developed and implemented in light of the increasing combat experience and conflict-related trauma exposure of the Interflex trainees.