Survival test

July, 2010 // “Kamufliazh”

Before the Journalist Day, professionals from the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine organized a special training course for a group of Ukrainian Media workers. The course is aimed to help under extreme conditions.
  Since the time of our state’s independence the operational geography of the Ukrainian reporters has greatly expanded. Today a lot of them carry out important and useful tasks of covering the Ukrainian peacekeepers activity in the regions of the UN peacekeeping missions. They also provide on-the-spot reporting of the situation in the world’s unstable regions to the public of Ukraine.
As an answer to multiple appeals by Ukraine’s top TV channels and considering the high level of risks to the reporters’ lives during their work in flashpoints as well as their obvious need for specialized survival skills, the DIU command decided to arrange a specialized training course for them.

A thoroughly-prepared training program included mixed training sessions in order to teach the journalists to set up area for rest, orient themselves and move without a map, fire light weapons,
make fire, find food and water, administer first aid, drill hand-to-hand combat techniques etc.

All classes were held under the guidance of the experienced DIU instructors on a tight schedule day and night under heavy physical and mental pressure of the course participants. Reporters lived in the conditions similar to those that they are likely to face in an emergency: classes took place regardless to heat and frequent showers; the journalists slept in shelters they built themselves, ate food they found, and treated their traumas and injuries with local medical plants.
  On the last day of the course the participants were given a comprehensive test assignment during which they have passed a kind of a survival test. It is pleasant to mention that the overwhelming majority of the course attendees handled it with excellent marks. The success of the course showed the high level of training of Ukrainian reporters and proved once more the professionalism of the Defense Intelligence personnel.

It should be mentioned that such a course was held by the DIU professionals for the first time. But the results and favorable reviews of the journalists who participated in it give us hope to see such courses again.