BRUSELAS, 17 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The European Union has defended this Monday establishing a European training mission for the Ukrainian military fighting the Russian invasion in the face of the new wave of attacks by the Russian Army against residential areas in Ukraine, including the explosions of Iranian-made kamikaze drones registered in kyiv this Monday.
Upon arrival at the meeting of EU foreign ministers being held in Luxembourg, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, described the drone attack as “bad news” and assured that at this time Europe must continue to support Ukraine with measures such as the “powerful” training mission for Ukrainian troops.
“It will be deployed outside the borders of Ukraine but will give strong support to the Ukrainian Army,” Borrell said, confirming that Poland will be one of the member states that will host the training operation for Ukrainian recruits and commanders.
Already raised last August, the mission will be ratified at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, with the aim of training 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers on European soil, most of whom, 12,000, will receive basic military training. In Brussels they want to launch the mission as soon as possible and calculate that it will be in mid-November, once all the technical details and the contributions of the Member States to the operation are defined.
In the same way, Borrell has advanced that the ministers will approve a sixth batch of 500 million euros to facilitate the supply of weapons to kyiv through the European Peace Mechanism, which raises European military support to 3,000 million since the beginning of the war.
“It is good news that we have an agreement for a training mission and we are going to look diligently at how we can contribute,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said before the meeting, claiming that it is a sign of continued support for kyiv.
His Danish colleague, Jeppe Kofod, has defended giving “full support” to Ukraine in different areas, including the military, in which it could be the first European mission in which Denmark participates after ending in a referendum, with the clause of military exclusion and fully integrated into the common defense policy.
For his part, the Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, has advanced that the Irish forces can help with the management of explosives and assist in demining. “The function is to help end the conflict and for Ukraine to defend itself”, he pointed out about the objective of the mission.