The proposal will be discussed next week in Prague at the Council of Defense Ministers of European Union member countries.
The EU plans to organize a missiontraining and supportto the Ukrainian army which would take place in neighboring countries, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy said on Monday, Joseph Borrell.
The proposal will be discussed next week in Prague at the Council of Defense Ministers of EU member countries, Josep Borrell said at a press conference in Santander (northern Spain). “I hope it will be approved“, he added.
A war that lasts
“The European Union deploys military training missions to the armies of the countries with which we cooperate“, he said. “We were doing it in Mali not long ago, we just started doing it in Mozambique and we did it in Niger“, he continued. “A war that lasts and looks like it will last requires an effort not only in terms of supplying equipment, but also training and helping to organize the army.he added of the Ukrainian conflict, which began six months ago on February 24 with the invasion of the country by Russian forces.
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The EU is also considering a significant increase in its military support for Ukraine, which would take the form of sending a “importanttraining mission of the Ukrainian army, the head of European diplomacy revealed on Monday. “We are facing a full scale war», «a conventional war“, he explained. “Not asymmetric guerrilla warfare“, but “a war that mobilizes extraordinarily large means and hundreds of thousands of soldiers“.
“Therefore, any mission must be up to the conflict“, he summarized. “This is no small war“, he still launched. “Ten million Ukrainians left their country, it’s as if 20% of Spaniards left Spain“Explained Josep Borrell, who is himself Spanish, to the attention of his audience. “This is what is under discussion between the Member States and which will be discussed at the political level next Monday in Prague within the Council of Defense Ministersof the EU, said Josep Borrell.
“Birth of geopolitical Europe”
The meeting will take place in Prague as the Czech Republic currently holds the EU Presidency until the end of the year. Josep Borrell recalled that many countries, inside and outside the EU, were supplying military equipment to Ukraine and that “some“already brought him bilaterally”the training needed to use this equipment“.
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However, he refused to provide more details, in particular on the personnel of such a mission, saying that he could not “anticipating the details of an agreement to be forged by all member states“. Josep Borrell was in Santander for a seminar on “the birth of geopolitical Europeorganized by the Menéndez Pelayo International University.
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