Holger Lindhardtsen and William L. Mitchell

Holger Lindhardtsen is a military analyst at the Institute for Military Operations at the Royal Danish Defence College. He is the main researcher for special operations at the "Lessons Learned from the Russo-Ukraine War" project at the Institute for Military Operations. Additionally, he contributes to other research projects such as the "Educating Future Warfighters" project, aimed at comparatively researching how officers can best build competencies for future conflicts, as well as supporting the integration of multidomain operations into military education. William L. Mitchell; Associate Professor Dr William L. Mitchell, commonly known as Mitch, is currently the Director of Military Intelligence Education at the Language and Intelligence Academy within the Norwegian Defence University. He has had a distinguished military career spanning three decades, during which he participated in a dozen conflicts across four continents. Mitch has an extensive academic background, having developed and taught intelligence, security, and military operations courses at both civilian and military universities. His research focuses on intelligence, warfighting, and special operations.

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Proxy Battlespaces: A New Perspective on Ukraine’s Use of Special Operations Forces in Syria, Sudan, and Mali

This article introduces the concept of proxy battlespaces to explain Ukraine’s deployment of Special Operations Forces (SOF) in Sudan, Syria, and Mali. At a...

Holger Lindhardtsen and William L. MitchellJanuary 13, 2026

Holger Lindhardtsen and William L. Mitchell

Article

Proxy Battlespaces: A New Perspective on Ukraine’s Use of Special Operations Forces in Syria, Sudan, and Mali

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