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We visited the GRC cameraman school, which is supported by the “Come Back Alive” foundation, and we didnʼt see a single cat there. What the foundation does, how the school works, and why the absence of cats is good

Author:: Glib Gusiev

Date:: 6:56 AM EET, November 4, 2026

We visited the GRC cameraman school, which is supported by the “Come Back Alive” foundation, and we didnʼt see a single cat there. What the foundation does, how the school works, and why the absence of cats is good — Кирило Лазаревич / «Бабель»

The “Varan” School, where operators of ground robotic complexes (GRCs) are trained, is part of the Ground Forces. It opened in 2024, and over a thousand cadets have completed their training there. The “Come Back Alive” foundation has been working with the school from the very beginning and has invested about UAH 47 million in Varan. It helped build a training center, create a maintenance and repair station, and provided the school with transportation. The most important thing the foundation has done actually seems the most ordinary. It helped equip living conditions: a dining room, showers, an underground barracks, a shelter, a sports field, like, everything without which training cannot be effective. The editor of Babel Glib Gusev and photographer Kyrylo Lazarevych watched how the school works.

It is known that you do not need to take your cat to the army, because the army will provide you with a cat itself. The first army cats are usually met by mobilized soldiers in training centers where they undergo based military training (BMT).

Cats live in dugouts and tents and hunt mice that destroy supplies. Cats are not a luxury there, but a necessity — without them, mobilized soldiers risk being left without food that is not canned.

We canʼt say that there are no cats [at all] at “Varan”, but we didnʼt see any during the day, and we take that as a good sign. The servicemen who train here live in conditions where mice donʼt bother them.

The barracks where they spend the night are built underground. Its frame is a shipping container, dug deep enough so that they donʼt have to worry about the threat from the sky.

So during nighttime air raid alerts, they have the main luxury of getting enough sleep.

Much has been written and said about the UAV revolution on the front lines. Unmanned aerial vehicles perform many roles on the front lines: they mine positions, deliver ammunition, evacuate soldiers, conduct strike operations, and lay barbed wire.

UAV companies have appeared as part of the UAV battalions of many forward-looking brigades.

Part of the revolution is ensured by work in the rear areas, which does not look heroic, but is necessary. "Varan" is one of the components of this revolution. The school provides decent conditions for learning.

For obvious reasons, we cannot show the general appearance of the school, but only its individual details. "Varan" is spread across a small settlement. In the main building there is a dining room and classrooms.

At a distance from it is the entrance to the same underground barracks where the cadets live. There is a sports ground and a workshop on the territory. In several houses located nearby, basements are equipped — full-fledged training missions are conducted here, during which operators cover tens of kilometers.

The school is headed by Lieutenant Colonel Vadym Kushch, who takes us around all its facilities and tells us how the training is going.

We immediately ask about the schoolʼs main problems.

The main problem he names is simple, but it has no easy solution. Like other similar schools, “Varan” is short of instructors. Itʼs because good specialists are reluctant to be released from line brigades.

Nevertheless, the school’s instructors have combat experience and regularly rotate to the front to understand how the battlefield is changing. This approach is reflected in the way the “Varan” training ground (where cadets train) is set up.

For example, the training ground is covered with synthetic material that imitates fiber optics — this is what the GRC operator will deal with on the front.

The cadets practice the scenarios that await them during combat work: ambushes on "awaiters", the action of electronic warfare equipment, FPV strikes. Each cadet is also taught to work with a "mavic". Without aerial observation, most GRC missions are difficult (or impossible) to perform in any way.

Lieutenant Colonel Kushch is a career soldier. He has a diploma from a military college with an engineering degree.

At the beginning of the Great War, he served in the 54th Motorized Rifle Brigade, and went through several hot spots with his brigade. He has been running the school from the very beginning, from the day it was founded. He explains the effectiveness of “Varan” simply: he does care what people (who will later fight) will learn; and his instructors do care either.

Perhaps, in particular, that is why there is no such phenomenon as AWOL among the schoolʼs problems. They happen, but they are not regular.

"At the beginning, I explain to all cadets: donʼt be stupid, if you want to run somewhere, then first get a speciality. It would be better for you to have a valuable military speciality if you are caught later," says Vadym Kushch.

As a result, they rarely run. Perhaps because they see an effective army in the example of "Varan".

The effectiveness is manifested in how they teach and what they teach. In the school hangar there are several dozen GRCs of different generations and types — logisticians, miners, evacuees — on which cadets practice tasks.

Regular guests of the "Varan" are engineers from manufacturing companies who collect field test data. Even the mechanics of the "Varan" develop a GRC-logistician of their own design, with an emphasis on cheapness and resistance to FPV damage.

The GRC workshops and service stations are one of the areas that the “Come Back Alive” foundation is involved in. Another is the repair and equipment of classrooms.

The building is being repaired even when we visit the school. In the corridors there are ladders, wood for the floor. It smells of paint. In one of the classrooms, a lecture is being given. In another one, three dozen cadets are working on missions in a simulator.

In total, “Come Back Alive” supports nine different schools and training centers. 10 years ago, it began training snipers, sappers, and medics.

It now trains UAV operators, electronic warfare engineers, and radar operators, and even divers.

The foundation’s latest project on front-line robotics is called “RoboBro". The goal is to save a thousand lives of soldiers with the help of GRCs. To do this, it supports work with GRCs “in the vertical line” — from the school that trains operators to units that have worked out effective tactics of use.

At the start, 6 brigades of the Ground Forces and the Department of Active Operations of GUR joined the project.