The EU will approve new funding next week that will bring its military support to Ukraine to “more than 3,000 million” since the start of the conflict, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, announced on Thursday.
In total, the EU will have dedicated “more than 3,000 million dollars of resources from the European Peace Support Fund”, he added before meeting with the defense ministers of the 30 members.
Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the Europeans have already earmarked 2.5 billion euros of the 5.7 billion euro endowment of a fund created outside the European budget to finance the shipment of weapons to Ukraine. The new tranche will be 500 million, said a European source.
Train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers
EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Monday to endorse new funding and launch a major military mission to help Ukrainian troops confront invading Russian forces.
The new military mission will also be funded by the European Peace Support Mechanism. It should allow training “initially” 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers, we learned from diplomatic sources.
The political agreement reached this Wednesday by the EU ambassadors in Brussels provides for a headquarters for the mission and training centers in each member state that will organize them. Poland and Germany have indicated their availability for the venue. France is planning a military training, it was said in the retinue of the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu.
NATO members have pledged to provide Ukraine with anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems that require several months of training to use. The UK, which left the EU, has been training Ukrainian soldiers on its territory for several months now.
Source: BFM TV
