By Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union rebuffed a request from Kyiv for the bloc to train Ukrainian soldiers inside the war-torn country, but will train them as close as possible to Ukrainian territory, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday.
The EU has trained some 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers inside the economic union’s borders since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of the country and will aim to train 15,000 more by the end of the year, Borrell said.
Kyiv has asked the EU to consider some training inside Ukraine, arguing this would be faster, more cost-effective, and logistically easier than inside the EU.
But multiple EU countries are reluctant to deploy troops inside Ukraine, expressing concerns about their safety and questioning whether such a move would divert Ukrainian forces from their core mission, in order to protect trainers.
“Some member states were ready, others reluctant,” Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels.
“Finally, we decided that the training will be as close as possible to Ukraine, but not in Ukrainian territory,” he said.
Borrell said he was personally open to Kyiv’s idea. “Why not? They ..(would be) closer to the environment where they will have to fight. It could be more appropriate.”
But deploying an EU military mission in Ukraine would require the agreement of all the bloc’s 27 members.
Borrell said he had proposed the EU establish a small coordination cell in Ukraine to liaise with Ukrainian forces and make the EU’s work “more effective”.
Friday’s decision would not prevent individual EU members, or a group of them, from training inside Ukraine. France floated such a prospect this year but diplomats say there is no sign of it becoming a reality soon.
Borrell also said the EU has provided some 650,000 ammunition rounds and missiles to Ukraine under a drive launched in March 2023, which was intended to deliver 1 million shells within 12 months.
“We are accelerating more and more by producing quicker. The industry is increasing capacity,” Borrell said. “I hope that by the end of the year we will reach the target.”
(Reporting by Andrew Gray; Editing by GV De Clercq and Rod Nickel)
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