The army is operating at around 70% strength as it looks to rebuild from mass resignations following its MIQ guarding operation – and it’s going to take until 2026 to finish the regeneration.

But with troops now training Ukrainians in the UK, Brigadier Hugh McAslan, the army’s land component commander, thinks the deployment will help regenerate enthusiasm in the force.

The army is facing major hurdles to get back to fighting strength as hundreds of soldiers have left the army, and a survey found a quarter were still thinking about it and a third were unhappy with wages.

McAslan said the army was facing the same labour challenges as other industries.

“There’s certainly no doubt that many young New Zealanders, men and women who joined the army, didn’t join to work on hotels.”

But the 120-strong deployment to the UK to train Ukrainian soldiers would give the army a boost in keeping staff engaged and interested in their work, he said.

McAslan said the UK deployment to train Ukrainians soldiers was “really helpful” for its regeneration as they had seen with the artillery team that had already gone to the UK.

“So the fact that we’ve got another 120 to shortly head up to the UK, when they return, they will have a whole lot of really good experience from what will be fairly full-on training,” McAslan said.

When asked if the army was approaching the limit of how much it could contribute to training Ukrainians, McAslan said the current setting of 120 troops was well within its ability.

The army is bringing in 43 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles in late 2022 and focusing on a digitisation of its force over the regeneration period.

“We’re not looking to generate the army of 2019,” he said.

McAslan said he was watching what was happening with the Russian invasion into Ukraine and the army was learning from it.

“I think what we’re seeing in Ukraine is perhaps a return to what would be considered more traditional state-on-state conflict, conventional warfare, characteristed by heavy use of artillery.

“But also you see these emerging, and readily available use, of commercial technology like drones,” he said.

McAslan said the kind of small commercial drones that hobbyists were using in New Zealand were also being adopted by the army.

“You’re seeing them now in an operational environment. It makes the gathering of intelligence, the gathering of information so much more accessible,” he said.

“I think they’re important already... they are out there, they are part of the environment.”

In November, the army is going to carry out large-scale exercises using 50% of the force over two weeks in Manawatū as part of Exercise Torokiki.