You don't mess with the citizens of Kryvyi Rih.
The largest industrial city in Ukraine, and the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is known for producing iron ore, steel and fearless leaders.
"Kryvyi Rih is the iron heart of our country and the people who live here have an iron character. It's impossible to break us," said Colonel Oleksandr Pyskun as he oversaw military training for around 100 local civilians.
"We have a proverb; 'Be afraid of two things: God and the guys from Kryvyi Rih'."
Colonel Pyskun is made of stern stuff himself.
He was on the battlefield when Russian forces annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014 and the war with Russian-backed separatists in Donbas began..
He was severely injured near Lysychansk trying to save his commanding officer's life under fire, and was taken prisoner by pro-Russian rebels.
After he was released, he was awarded Ukraine's Order of Courage.
He is now the Deputy Commander of the Kryvyi Rih Military Unit No 3011.
"I am proud of our president," he said.
"He is a native son of our city of Kryvyi Rih. He rallied around him all the people of Ukraine.
"The whole country and the whole city are beating like one heart, as one organism."
Kryvyi Rih resisted Russian invaders
When the Russians tried to take President Zelenskyy's hometown with tanks and paratroopers in the first days of the war, they got a classic steel city response.
The airport runway was blocked with large trucks and construction vehicles.
The road in from the nearby city of Mykolaiv was blockaded by giant mining trucks around 40 minutes before a Russian convoy was due to arrive.
Around the same time his home city was under attack, President Zelenskyy was in the nation's capital, refusing to leave, despite the risks to his own life.
Reports from the time suggest he survived at least three assassination attempts in those early weeks from Chechen special forces and mercenaries.
After he was offered help by the US to be evacuated from Kyiv, he famously said: "The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride."
In his home city, that was seen as very much a Kryvyi Rih kind of response.
"I am sure that Zelenskyy had the opportunity to leave the country," Colonel Piskun said.
"He didn't do that, and for this, I thank him very much."
Even former political rivals here have praised the president's courage.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rih Regional Military Administration, was once the deputy prime minister under the pro-Russian leadership of President Yanukovych.
He said Mr Zelenskyy has proven himself under intense pressure.
"We are proud that our president is our countryman, he is one of the symbols of the warring Ukraine, and he behaves very courageously," he told the ABC.
"I think the president united the whole country to fight the aggressor and built effective communications with the entire Western world."
There was something special about young Volodymyr
Andrii Shaikan first met Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the stage during a talent show.
It was 1995 and they were studying at Kryvyi Rih's State University of Economics and Technology.
"We were in opposite teams, competing for the best faculty place of the year," he told the ABC.
Mr Shaikan is now the rector of the university. He remembers a creative, strong-willed young man who inspired his peers.
"He was certainly the leader who was at the centre of the company," he said.
"He was the soul of the group. He was modest, but wherever he appeared, he would draw attention to himself."
Natalia Volosheniuk is an associate professor in finance and banking at the university.
She taught President Zelenskyy in the 1990s and said the qualities he displayed then remain today.
"He was a rather inquisitive person who strove for knowledge," she said.
"He differed from other students in his very subtle sense of humour.
"He was distinguished even in those years by his decency, honesty and desire to achieve his goals."
'You had to fight to be yourself'
Much is made of President Zelenskyy's background in comedy and acting.
Before entering politics he produced and starred in a TV program called Servant of the People in which he played a history teacher who becomes president after a classroom diatribe against corruption goes viral.
Mr Shaikan said the president was not only a comedian with a talent for performing. He also built a large and successful entertainment business from nothing.
Mr Zelenskyy named his production company "Kvartal 95," after the Kryvyi Rih district where he grew up.
"He didn't just start as an actor," Mr Shaikan said.
"He was a university graduate who came to the capital from the provinces, convinced his team to come after him, and they started from scratch, they had no connection, no patronage."
Mr Shaikan agrees that Kryvyi Rih had a big influence on Mr Zelenskyy's character.
He described it as a harsh city that was a tough and competitive place to grow up in.
"In our childhood and adolescence, it was a time when youth gangs and movements of criminal characters were actively present in the city," he said.
"You had to fight to be yourself in those conditions, particularly if you were involved in creative arts."
While things have improved, Mr Shaikan said, for much of the twentieth century Kryvyi Rih was a city dealing with extreme adversity.
"This is the city that was destroyed during World War II, that suffered during the Holodomor famine in 1932 to 33," he said.
"This city knew ethnic cleansing by Nazi Germany, this city also went through Stalin's repressions."
Will Russia attempt to conquer Kryvyi Rih again?
There are fears that those hard times are returning to Kryvyi Rih, and that Russia will try again to take this city and the resources it produces.
After Russia's messy offensive to capture multiple Ukranian cities at once failed, the invading forces have largely focused on the country's east.
Kryvyi Rih is not that far from the hotly contested Donbas region.
It would be a symbolic and strategic prize for Russian President Vladimir Putin to capture the birthplace of his Ukrainian foe.
Earlier this week, three Russian missiles struck Kryvyi Rih, damaging a manufacturing plant.
There are concerns it could be the start of something bigger.
But Colonel Pyskun scoffs at any suggestion that the Russians would be crazy enough to take on this city.
"Firstly, the Russians won't come here," he said.
"They would have no chance.
"However, if this happens, they will face death and fire."
