Minister announces that 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers have completed their training in the EU by the end of March

By the end of March, a total of 11,000 soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine will complete training as part of the European Union (EU) military support mission, the Minister of National Defense announced on Wednesday.

At the end of an informal meeting of European Union (EU) defense ministers organized by the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council, Helena Carreiras announced that by the end of March a total of 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers will have undergone training at headquarters in Poland and Germany.

By the end of the year, the minister added, a total of 30,000 soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine will have completed training under this mission.

At the end of the morning, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, who was one of the guests at this European Union ministerial meeting, announced that the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, where the fighting been concentrated for weeks, should fall “in the next few days”.

Russian troops were expected to occupy the city for weeks and even the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, was expected to announce the capture of Bakhmut, which did not happen.

When asked if NATO Secretary General’s statements increased pressure to speed up Kiev’s request for large-caliber ammunition, the defense minister believed that these requests were “already intense”.

“The pressure is here, we know that it is necessary to prepare a counteroffensive, that it is necessary to support Ukraine now, time is of fundamental importance,” the minister added.

Earlier this week, Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who heads the Wagner Group, a mercenary organization linked to the Kremlin, announced that “the entire western part of the city” was under Russian control and that the rest of the city ​​would follow.

Ukrainian troops have been strengthening their presence on this frontline in recent weeks and are also creating defensive points in nearby cities, such as Kramatorsk, Sloviansk or Chasiv Yar.

In the course of the morning, the Minister with the Defense portfolio announced that the three Leopard 02 A6 tanks that Portugal will send to Ukraine were already in Germany, operational and ready to go to Ukrainian territory.

These three combat vehicles join 18 German tanks headed for Ukraine by the end of the month.