Recruit two hundred military, ex-military, police, ex-police or security experts with a minimum of two years of experience to go to war in Ukraine to fight or protect installations or the civilian population, charging between 2,800 and 3,400 euros per month. This is the goal of the security training company GOA Tactical, based in Alpicat (Lleida), which has already shortlisted eighty men. No woman has come forward.
After a five-day instruction course to be held in Barcelona, for which each candidate will pay about seven hundred euros, GOA Tactical certifies the curriculum and guarantees that the applicants who have passed it are prepared to join the Ukrainian army that fights against the Russian invasion since February last year. Having no criminal record is an essential requirement, according to the newspaper Segre.
"We have an agreement with the Ukrainian army units, we certify the preparation and those selected have the commitment that they will be hired by an army unit," says Sisco Galván, owner of the company. "We do not hire, it is the Ukrainian government, we help Ukraine know that we have made a filter to select the personnel, to ensure that those who go are prepared, initially the offer would be for three years, although if the war ends it would be shortened the contract, qualifies Galván.
One of the GOA Tactical instructors in Ukraine, who has fought for six months on the Donbass front, assures that there are many jobs to be carried out in army units: “the most specialized ones work in reconnaissance and sabotage, there will be specialists in logistics, in artillery , in drones, drivers, toilets, mechanics..."
Pedro (fictitious name to preserve his anonymity for security reasons), a former Army soldier in Spain and a member of the French Foreign Legion, has been the GOA mediator in the collaboration agreement with the Ukrainian military. He is 37 years old. In the last battalion he was in, the GUR, specializing in military intelligence, he ended up as a drill sergeant.
“The commanders _Pedro says_ had detected that many soldiers who enlisted after a few days broke their contracts, I have seen people who have gone on their own with a very low level of training. We have reached an agreement with a Ukrainian unit to send operators with minimum requirements and a selection course. They will leave Spain with work, but from that moment on GOA ignores it, it is the army units that hire the personnel”.
Pedro has seen four comrades die: “Once we spent five days in a position where we had five days of combat. We were under mortar and tank fire. Those days were pretty tough. We lost three Colombian comrades in a very strong attack that we had, we saw them die and we were able to recover it after 15 days. Another Brazilian comrade fell from a sniper shot, he died on us”.
For him, it is the job for which he has always prepared himself. “It gives me the chance to test myself in all the military skills that I have and bring my experience and my work to a country that is invaded and that is being destroyed.
Pedro has a five-year-old son. He tells his child that he does special missions, that he is "helping people in a country that is having a hard time." "My son is very proud," he says, smiling.
His mother does have a bad time. "She knows _affirms_ that I dedicate myself to this, she has a hard time, but she knows that I am happy doing this job, my parents are used to it."
