The secret camp where Australia and Ukraine train for war

London: A few years ago, life for Sergey was all about his work as a dance instructor in Kyiv.

Now his life depends on new skills he must learn quickly to survive the battlefields of eastern Ukraine.

Sergey, 27, is one of the soldiers being trained by Australians at a military camp in England that has brought thousands of international personnel together to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

He has already seen combat against Russian forces, but he has signed up for leadership training so he can return to Ukraine as a section commander in charge of others.

“The war changes every day – the next day is not like the previous one,” says Sergey, who cannot disclose his surname.

“So you need to be adaptive, to adapt to every new moment, and also you need to be quite creative, to know what to do with new problems.”

And there is one more thing, he says: you must think at least two steps ahead.

This is not classroom training. The military camp – its location cannot be reported – features trenches that replicate eastern Ukraine and forests that are used to put soldiers through some of the shocks of war. Shells litter the ground. The exercises convey the explosions, casualties, and stench of the battlefield.

The UK launched this training program, known as Operation Interflex, in the middle of 2022. Australia has been a member country since January 2023, when it sent 70 soldiers in what the Australian Army calls Operation Kudu. This has increased to 90 soldiers on rotation. The training operation includes personnel from New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Albania, Estonia, Kosovo, Lithuania and Romania.

Operation Interflex has now trained more than 58,000 Ukrainians. But the learning is not all one-way. Sergey has experience that others can learn from because he has seen modern warfare up close – including the way drones are changing the battlefield.

“The instructors are very open for feedback, and they are super interested in our work,” he tells this masthead during a visit the camp for a ceremony to mark Ukrainian Independence Day on August 24.

“They’re sharing their experience. But on the other hand, they [are] absolutely open to our experience, and we tell them what we see, what we know. And together, we collect both our strong sides to become even stronger, Ukrainians and Australians.”

Few army camps in England bring so many personnel together from so many countries, and not all of them are military. Some Ukrainians have served Operation Interflex for years as linguists and translators.

One of them, Anna, 27, was working in a civilian job when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. She had studied history and archaeology at university, but felt she needed to do work that was connected to Ukraine and helped her country.

“I can see the value in why I’m here, why I’m doing this” she says. “It’s about my country and my people, people back home, my beloved ones. And, of course, about our Ukrainian soldiers.

“I heard about this opportunity to be a linguist and then, straight away, I was like, ‘Yes, I really want to do it’.

“Being a linguist here, it’s not only about the translation. It’s more about being like a mediator between both sides, and just ensuring that people who are coming here, the soldiers, are feeling that they are not alone.”

Anna has been at the camp for more than two years and began working with the Australian unit at the beginning of this year. She laughs at the Australian way with words – like “brekkie” in the morning or taking a “specky” in Australian rules football.

Leading all of this work is Colonel Andrew Boardman of the British Army, commander of Operation Interflex.

The position of deputy commander has been held by Australian officers on rotation. The current deputy commander is Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ozols of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps.

Ozols says the work means the Australians see up close the commitment of the Ukrainians to their cause.

“The individual commitment for people not only to volunteer for their country, but, equally, to then leave home, travel quite a way away from their families, from their friends in a time of crisis – to become leaders, to then go home and lead during the war – is something that is pretty powerful to see,” he says.

“And it’s a great example for everyone.”

Another part of the structure is unusual for the Australian Army. One of the training units is jointly staffed by soldiers from Australia and Finland – a rare instance of the two countries working so closely on defence.

“The Finnish have a pretty similar cultural approach to training that we do,” Ozols says.

“The Australian and Finnish team are integrated at the individual level. You’ll see Australians leading and Finns following, and then moments later, the Finns will be leading and Australians following.

“They create a great environment for the Ukrainians to train in, and all three nations are learning from each other.”

Drone warfare is one example of the training – and it is an area where Australians and Ukrainians are learning from each other. Russia has inflicted terrible casualties on Ukrainian civilians with its drones, using designs from Iran and parts from China. These drones also change calculations on the battlefield.

The Australians are deeply involved in this work.

“Drones are probably the biggest evolution recently in warfare, and probably the biggest threat that the people that we’re here working with are facing right now,” says one of the Australian Army trainers. His name also cannot be disclosed.

“It’s probably the most important thing to be working on in our space at the moment.”

This is a reminder of the deadly seriousness of the work. When newcomers are introduced to Operation Interflex, they are shown two pictures, both in black and white.

One shows a trench from World War I, the second a trench from eastern Ukraine. They look identical. The destruction looks the same, and so does the mud. But the modern war is fundamentally different – and the drones are a big part of the change.

Operation Interflex is one of the most important ways Australia and Ukraine are sharing knowledge about what this does to the future of war.

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