Estonia Joins Interflex Program to Train Ukrainian Soldiers

Estonia became the 13th country and the latest NATO member state to join the UK-led Operation Interflex, which provides training to Ukrainian soldiers on British soil.

It’s not known how many instructors Estonia would send to assist with the training program.

Estonia’s Ministry of Defence announced the update yesterday during the Ramstein meeting, which was the 18th meeting of its kind and oversaw the discussion within the military coalition to support Ukraine.

To date, 950 military instructors from 13 nations have participated in the Interflex training program for Ukrainian soldiers, not including those from the British Armed Forces.

Operation Interflex is the codename for the UK-led training program that started in July 2022, five months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is the largest program of its kind in the UK since World War II.

Under the program, recruits from Ukraine would undergo a five-week training program in the UK to learn combat basics. They would then return to Ukraine to help defend the country.

The UK also acquired several Kalashnikov pattern rifles familiar to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to better simulate the combat conditions in Ukraine.

At the time of writing, more than 34,000 Ukrainian soldiers have completed military training through the program.

In December, the British Ministry of Defence released a video that depicts the training conditions.

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Operation Interflex is the successor of Operation Orbital, another UK-led training program for Ukraine started in 2015 in the wake of Russia’s territorial aggression in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.