European Union defense ministers will formally launch this Tuesday the training mission to the Ukrainian Army, which will involve up to 20 member states, and aims to train 15,000 Ukrainian recruits to fight in the war against Russia.
The meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, in its Defense mode, will kick off the mission, approved last October to train Ukrainian forces with two sites: Poland and Germany. The mission will have a budget of 107 million euros, in addition to another 16 million euros that the EU-27 will have to contribute for ammunition and equipment for the operation.
The start of operations will take place at a meeting at which the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksi Reznikov, will intervene by videoconference and explain to his European counterparts the situation on the ground, with special attention to the announcement of the Russian withdrawal from Kherson.
Specifically on the mission, a senior EU official explained that many Member States have shown interest in contributing to the mission and assured that between 15 and 20 countries will take part in the operation, which will be European in nature and will have multinational teams. «We have organized informal meetings to gauge the level of support and there are many member states that can make offers,» he said.
In Brussels, special emphasis is placed on the need for operational coordination, which is why the command will be centralized in the European capital under the figure of the director general of the EU General Staff, Admiral Herve Blejean.
In any case, they point out that Poland will play an essential role because it will not only host part of the training but, as a neighboring country, it will be the gateway for the recruits and will be the logistical hub. The mission will be closely coordinated with the United Kingdom and the United States, which also carry out this type of training for Ukrainian forces.
