The governments of Germany and Spain announced on Tuesday (15) their intention to train thousands of Ukrainian soldiers as part of a European Union (EU) program to reinforce aid to this country at war with Russia.
European defense ministers began a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to launch the biggest military training mission in the bloc’s history, aiming to train up to 15,000 Ukrainian troops.
The main center of this mission will be established in Poland, and a secondary headquarters in Germany is also planned.
Arriving at the meeting in Brussels, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her government plans to train some 5,000 Ukrainian fighters “in various skills” as early as June next year.
In turn, the Spanish Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, highlighted that her country proposes to train “400 soldiers every two months”, for a total of 2,400 fighters in a year.
The military academy in Toledo, added Robles, “has been adapted so that they can be housed and have adequate living conditions (…). It is an open offer, with the possibility of increasing it if necessary”.
Last month, France announced it would train 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers. The United Kingdom, Canada and the United States have already started training Ukrainian personnel.
EU training operations are expected to last two years initially, at an estimated cost of around US$62 million per year.
These funds would come from the European Peace Fund, which has already been used to cover the high costs of delivering EU weapons to Ukraine.
Arriving at the meeting, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, highlighted that “3.1 billion of the 5.7 billion euros of the seven-year endowment have already been mobilized to supply Ukraine with weapons”.
At their meeting in Brussels, the ministers will also review their own military capabilities and maintain contact via video conference with Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.
French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu highlighted when he arrived at the meeting that “aid to Ukraine affects a lot of resources in our strategic reserves and we must have the ability to regenerate these resources quickly”.
The EU claims that, together with its member states, it has already supplied 8 billion euros in military equipment to Ukraine, approximately 45% of which is provided by the United States.
European defense ministers highlighted the withdrawal of Russian troops from the town of Kherson and pledged to keep up the flow of support.
This withdrawal “means that the help Ukraine is getting, in weapons but also in training, is working,” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said.
