SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images
- Shortly after Russia's attack on Ukraine in 2014, US and NATO troops began training Ukrainians.
- As part of that, US trainers set up a version of US Army Special Forces' "Q course" for Ukraine.
- "Q course" assesses Green Beret candidates and teaches them the basics of their profession.
In 2014, Russia seized Crimea and large swaths of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, setting off a long-running conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed fighters in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Eight years later, that low-intensity conflict escalated into a full-scale war, after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops into Ukraine in late February 2022 to topple the government and install a new one under Moscow's influence.