Under the watchful eyes of trained soldiers from across Australia, former Ukrainian taxi drivers, solicitors and tradesmen are learning how to fight a war.
About 70 ADF personnel, mostly from the Northern Territory's Robertson Barracks, have been in the United Kingdom since January for Operation Kudu — the Australia arm of the UK-led Operation Interflex.
February 24 marks one year since Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border and began what Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains is a "special military operation".
An Australian army platoon commander in the UK, who is not named for security reasons, said the training was teaching recruits how to "manoeuvre", "defend" and "operate within" an urban battlefield.
"The kinds of training we've been doing is movement from the rural to urban environment, movement within the urban environment, and breaching rooms, room entry, building clearance," the platoon commander said.
One of the Ukrainian recruits said he had joined the defence effort as a military interpreter, helping instructors and recruits to understand each other.
Now, he's also learning how to operate on a battlefield.
"We were working on clearing buildings, ensuring there's no enemies … and treating casualties or taking prisoners or helping civilians get out of [the building] — things you can face as you fight for cities," he said.
The recruit said the training ground resembled the kind of environments where the war in Ukraine was taking place.
"[The training] will definitely help them in real fights because most of the fights, they occur in highly populated areas with lots of buildings and houses" he said.
"It will help them have more experience prior to actually doing it in real life."
According to the ADF, Australian soldiers will continue to be deployed to the UK to train recruits throughout the year. Officials say Operation Interflex has already trained around 10,000 Ukrainians.
Sharing critical skills
The platoon commander said the Ukrainian recruits were responding well to the training, and were eager and quick to learn.
"They seem to be able to pick up everything very fast … and they always ask questions that are very relevant, and very pointed to improve themselves … and become better soldiers before they move back to Ukraine," they said.
Speaking from an urban training ground in the UK, a Darwin soldier from the 1st Health Battalion — who cannot be named for security reasons — said her team has been teaching Ukrainian recruits the basics of combat medicine.
"We're preparing recruits for gunshot wounds and blast injuries particularly," she said.
"For us it's about … making them do their own self-aid which includes applying tourniquets and trying to get themselves into a safe spot, which is generally a room that has already been cleared."
"It's an incredibly important skill for any soldier to know as they're going back into a war zone, and it will increase their survivability."
Expert backs calls for more military help
There have been calls in some quarters for Australia to step up its military assistance to Ukraine in recent months.
Those calls have the support of Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defence strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who believes Australia should expand its contribution to the war effort.
"I think every country in terms of western liberal democracies have to step up, including Australia," he said.
"This is a really crucial war, that not only Ukraine but we must win.
"I think that a good move for Australia would be to provide additional military assistance, including armoured fighting vehicles, potentially main battle tanks and other forms of military assistance, to give the Ukrainians the greatest possible opportunity to defeat the Russians."
Dr Davis dismissed the argument that Australia shouldn't involve itself in the conflict as ludicrous.
He said the country's military involvement was to "defend a key principle" as well as Ukraine itself.
"If this aggression stands, it's not only about Russian threats to Europe that we have to worry about, it sets a precedent that other countries such as China could exploit in using military force to expand its borders," he said.
Disclaimer: The soldiers and recruits quoted in this article are not named for security reasons and spoke in interviews supplied to the ABC by the defence force.
