Kiev

- The sounds of mine explosions left by the Russian forces are heard from time to time in the outskirts of the capital, Kiev, and the state of alert remains at its highest in the suburbs and inside the city alike, even if life has returned to relatively normal after the withdrawal of those forces.

This is reflected in the continued presence of military checkpoints and some barricades, which cut off internal and external roads, as well as in the non-stop exercises carried out by the "regional defense" forces affiliated with the regular army, and it includes volunteer civilians, retired soldiers, and veterans.

Training to launch missiles from ground-based weapons (Al-Jazeera)

In a military training field

With the approval and escort of one of the companies of those forces, and after passing several checkpoints and strict security measures, Al Jazeera.net entered a military training field in a place far from the city of Kyiv, where the residents do not hear the sounds of shooting, shelling and artillery strikes, so they do not imagine that the battles have returned again.

The place simulates a real war arena, in terms of the possible rugged terrain, the spread of targets and the stationing of soldiers, but filming the entire place remains prohibited, for well-known security reasons, the most important of which is not to detect it, and to protect the trainees from long-range Russian bombings.

Al-Jazeera Net, one of the officers responsible for the process of organizing these exercises in the "National Guard", which accompanies the participating forces and coordinates among them, said, "Of course, we have "hundreds" of similar training sites, and not around Kyiv alone, but around all the major cities in Ukraine, They are variable locations, meaning that the exercises do not take place in them on a fixed periodic basis.

For more security, police helicopters from the National Guard, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Interior, pass over the field from time to time.

One of the soldiers of the Caucasus Corps participating in combat operations against Russia (Al-Jazeera)

Various types of weapons

After listening to the experts and trainers, and after removing and equipping the weapons, and the deployment of soldiers and target observers in separate places, the field turns into an arena that simulates real combat, which stops only when an error occurs, or to make some observations.

Training here includes all kinds of weapons, from Kalashnikovs, sniper rifles, grenade launchers mounted on the ground or vehicles, to heavy machine guns, and even regular army armored vehicles.

One of the trainers told Al Jazeera Net, "Kyiv is in constant danger as long as the war lasts. The capital cannot be far from danger, but we are not training to protect Kyiv only, but to participate in protecting other cities and sites in the country, if the need arises."

Algerian origin Ahmed, one of the young men who joined the Regional Defense Forces and the Caucasus Corps in defense of Ukraine (Al-Jazeera)

"Caucasus" .. Corps of Muslims

In the field of training, there were dozens of "Caucasian Corps", as the authorities concerned with the "regional defense" forces in Kyiv called, led by the Ministry of Defense, a corps that includes several factions, primarily Muslim and Arab volunteers.

One of the legion commanders, who is of Chechen origin (refused to reveal his name), told Al Jazeera Net, "We are professional fighters and volunteers of Chechen, Dagestan, Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar and Arab origin, and among us are also some non-Muslim fighters as well. We were united by the citizenship of Ukraine, love for its land, and long life in it. as a common country.

He adds, "For many of us, Ukraine is a single homeland and there is no alternative, and defending it is a religious and moral duty before any other considerations," he said.

At the place we met the young Ahmed of Algerian origin, who explained to Al Jazeera the secret of this name. He said, "The Caucasus is the first Islamic wound opened by the Russians, and this is something agreed upon by all those who were harmed later in other Muslim and Arab countries."

Regarding the reasons that prompted him to volunteer and take up arms, Ahmed said, "I have belonged to Ukraine for years. My wife is Ukrainian and we have a child. My fight is to protect my country, my family, and my honor," he said.

The Islamic "Crimea" battalion is one of the Islamic battalions that have been fighting alongside the Ukrainian forces since 2014 (French)

Protection of headquarters and "special missions"

Many members of this "corps" are masked, fearing for their relatives in the countries and regions from which their origins come, as they say, and also because they carry out special combat missions, based on experiences that distinguish them from others, and make them part of the forces participating in guarding the presidency and government headquarters, according to their logo.

On this matter, one of the commanders of the corps tells Al-Jazeera Net, "Who of us fought against the Russians in Chechnya, and against Ramzan Kadyrov's forces, so we know how to deal with those, whom Russia pushed to Kyiv as special forces, to assassinate President Zelensky and take control of government headquarters in the early weeks of war.

He also pointed out that "the Legion sends fighters to carry out special operations in other areas, primarily eastern, and it has a record of many operations to eliminate Russian infiltrators and their collaborators, based on intelligence information," he said.

Several anti-Russian and anti-Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov Islamist battalions have been fighting alongside the Ukrainian forces since 2014, including the Chechen "Gohar Dudayev" and "Abdullah Mansour" brigades, and the Islamic "Crimea" brigade.

After a few hours we spent in the training field, we left it with strict security measures as well, and on the way out, new groups arrived at the place, with different faces, features, and equipment;

Each has different locations and tasks, it seems.