Borrell wants 'political green light' to train more Ukrainian troops

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Defense ministers of the EU will convene to discuss a high-level training mission for the Ukrainian military at an informal meeting in Prague, according to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday, adding that he expects the ministers to achieve a political agreement on the matter.  

At a press conference in Santander, northern Spain, Borrell disclosed the matter to reporters by saying: "Today, it is an informal meeting, so no decision can be taken, but, in general, an overall political agreement, that is what I think we have to get today. Later the details will come, we have a procedure, quite complex, in order to identify the objective, the purpose that I mentioned, the resources, but today, I hope that we will have a political green light for this mission".

He stated that the military training project would need to be agreed upon by all EU member states, as "several" nations already provide military training to Ukrainian forces under bilateral agreements such as the United Kingdom and other European countries that regularly deploy to Ukraine. Close to 20,000 European mercenaries have already joined since the beginning of the war. 

Just last month, Borrell urged the EU to amp up cooperative weapons purchases to restore stocks depleted by the military support provided to Ukraine, improving NATO and the bloc's military capacities, and adding that the EU needs more deployable and interoperable armed forces to confront the whole spectrum of dangers and threats the unit is now experiencing.

The US has also demonstrated its stance on the matter, by not only providing its own troops for the Ukrainian forces but also recruiting former Afghan special forces and IS members to join the Ukrainian forces.

Both the US and the EU have been stacking military aid packages, with the former's latest package including a $3bln arms supply and the latter's seen through Germany's continuation of weaponry transfer to Ukraine, including new equipment that the German Armed Forces do not have enough of, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The UK is also in deep water, according to a source cited by The Times newspaper, given that it is running out of weapons and financial contributions for Ukraine, which means that the new UK Prime Minister will face the question of whether to make billions of pounds of additional support at a time when public finances are under strain.

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