European Union to add 500 million EUR in military assistance to Ukraine and to launch training of Ukrainian soldiers.

The European Union is increasing its military support for Ukraine with the launch on Monday, October 17, of a mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers on its territory and the granting of a new allocation of 500 million euros for the supply of weapons, AFP and several media report. The foreign ministers of the 27 EU member countries will endorse these two decisions this Monday at a meeting in Luxembourg and the mission will be immediately operational. These training courses will be able to benefit from funding allocated by the European Peace Facility (EPF), the fund set up outside the European budget to help Ukraine militarily.
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Like the U.S. and France, the United Kingdom is already training Ukrainian soldiers (Picture source: UK Army)

A budget of 50 to 60 million euros per year is planned for the launch phase of the mission, raising the effort from the Europeans to 3 billion euros, not including the bilateral contributions which are much more important.

On top of training already carried out in the UK and by U.S. units, several training courses are already given to Ukrainian units in various European Union Member States, particularly in Germany and France, where Ukrainian soldiers are trained to use howitzers, missile launchers and air defense systems supplied by various European countries. Germany wants to form an entire Ukrainian brigade. France will train up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers on its soil, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu announced on October 15, to provide general training of fighters as well as to meet specific needs expressed by the Ukrainians themselves, namely in logistics. Training will also focus on equipment provided by France like the remarkable CAESAR self-propelled howitzers.

In total, the EU’s goal is to provide basic training to 12,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and specialized (technical) training to 2,800 others to use artillery systems, radars, etc. Poland will serve as a hub for the mission because of its neighboring situation.

Drones have become "an asset" in the conflict in Ukraine. The Europeans denounce the supply of such weapons to Russia by Iran in violation of United Nations resolutions, which Tehran dares deny in spite of numerous pieces of evidence, including the Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets this Monday 17 October morning.