France to host 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers for training

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen English + Agencies
15 Oct 2022 23:31
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French Minister of Armed Forces announces that 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers will join French soldiers in France for training.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and French Minister of the Armed Forces sign defense and security French grants to Kiev.

The French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sebestian Lecornu, announced in an interview on Sunday for Le Parisien newspaper that France will host and train 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

According to the Minister, the Ukrainian soldiers will be training with French soldiers for several weeks, while the training would consist of three levels, first of which is general combat, then specific areas required by the Ukrainian army such as logistics, then the training will be on military defense equipment that was supplied by the West.

However, the Minister stressed that "it will not be in a belligerent fashion because we are not at war. We are helping a country that is at war."

Lecornu announced that France is considering supplying surface-to-surface missiles to Ukraine and added that France will provide a number of Crotale air defense systems, in addition to 6 Caesar mobile artillery units on top of the 18 previously supplied to Kiev.

On the air defense systems, the quantity of which is unannounced, the Minister stated that the number of systems is being "defined with the Ukrainians" adding that it "will be significant to allow them to defend their skies."

Earlier on October 13, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced that he signed an agreement over security and defense grants with the French Minister of the Armies, Sebastien Lecornu, at the sixth Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels today.

The deal is meant to assist Ukraine's forces in boosting its military capabilities against Russia and set an initial aid amount of €100 million.

The €100 million fund was announced six days ago by French President Emmanuel Macron after a summit in Prague during which he said, "We are setting up this special, dedicated fund initially with €100 million to allow the acquisition of equipment that we have already delivered and that we will continue to do so in terms of weapons, meaning defensive ones."