FILE PHOTO: Reservists of the 130th battalion of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces attend military exercises on outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine April 10, 2021. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
KYIV (Reuters) - At the outbreak of the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, the Ukrainian army was so poorly equipped that ordinary citizens were knitting socks, donating scrap metal and even crowdfunding a tank for soldiers at the front line.
The government that took over after the Maidan street protests said it had only 5,000 combat-ready ground troops and did not put up a fight when Russian forces seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula in March that year.
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