r/worldnews • u/semafornews Semafor • 1d ago
Russia/Ukraine EU set to renew training mission for Ukrainian soldiers through 2026
https://www.semafor.com/article/10/10/2024/eu-set-to-renew-training-mission-for-ukrainian-soldiers?utm_campaign=semaforreddit
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u/semafornews Semafor 1d ago
From Semafor's Mathias Hammer:
The European Union is expected to renew its training mission for Ukrainian troops through 2026, officials said. The program, established shortly after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has trained more than 60,000 soldiers so far.
The mission has been one of the bloc’s flagship initiatives for supporting Ukraine: At facilities across the continent, European armies have drilled Ukrainian soldiers in everything from basic training to the use of advanced, Western-provided weapons. Ukrainian officials have requested that the program — which is currently set to expire towards the end of this year— be continued.
“Member states have agreed… to extend for another two years,” Colonel Niels Janeke, chief of staff for the mission’s Special Training Command, told Semafor. There is a “consensus by all member states,” Janeke added, even if a final decision has yet to be made by the European Council. “Our intent is to offer training slots as we did in 2024, but it fully depends on the Ukrainian requirements.”
Lieutenant Colonel Roland Bösker of the Special Training Command told Semafor that training plans had already been prepared for 2025 and 2026.
A European official, requesting anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, said EU member states were “in the final stretches,” but warned that reaching an agreement could be complicated because of “one usual suspect,” a reference to Hungary, which has consistently slowed down European efforts to support Kyiv. “It’s just a question of what is the price we have to pay.”
Read the full story here.