Macron urges European leaders to form coalition to send trainers to Ukraine - Bloomberg
The Baltic states and Britain have already expressed their readiness to join the coalition
The French President Emmanuel Macron is in talks with European leaders to send military instructors to Ukraine.
Source. Bloomberg writes about this with reference to its sources. According to them, he is going to present the coalition at the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June, which will be attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Western instructors will begin training Ukrainian soldiers. According to one of the sources, the assistance will focus on areas such as demining and military equipment maintenance. Initially, a limited number of personnel will be sent to Ukraine, but the group is expected to expand later. The source notes that it will potentially include ‘hundreds of people’.
NATO member states from the Baltic region have already expressed their readiness to join the coalition. ‘Lithuania, if necessary, will train them [the Armed Forces] in Ukraine in partnership with countries that are ready to do so,’ said Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonite.
Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said that his government was ‘open to discussing’ such a possibility.
According to Le Monde's sources, Macron also raised the issue of creating a ‘coalition of trainers’ at a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on 28 May.
In addition, the United Kingdom has expressed its interest in participating. According to the publication's interlocutors, Western instructors will train sappers and prepare military personnel for the new motorised infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
For a number of European countries, participation in the coalition would be a natural extension of the EU Military Assistance Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM), which was launched in autumn 2022 to train the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the territory of the association. It involves 24 EU member states and Norway. The programme has already trained 52,000 Ukrainian soldiers, or 15 brigades. More than 12,000 of them have been trained in France. Another 8,000 soldiers will graduate by the end of the summer.
According to representatives of Western military structures, training Ukrainian soldiers on the territory of Ukraine will not only increase their effectiveness, but also reduce the risks associated with their deployment to other countries. Currently, soldiers train mainly in Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, which requires significant logistical efforts and costs.
Background. Meanwhile, the Polish Foreign Minister is proposing to create a military unit from Ukrainians who have moved to Poland. Sikorski believes that their training will be of more help than sending instructors to Ukraine.
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