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No consensus in EU on sending instructors to Ukraine — Estonian defense minister

According to Hanno Pevkur, EU countries also need to understand at what level Ukrainian troops will be trained

BRUSSELS, August 30. /TASS/. There is no consensus yet in the EU on sending military instructors to Ukraine, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said upon arriving at a meeting of top EU military officials in Brussels.

"Well, we do not have the consensus here yet, of course, we have to continue <...> We have to find a consensus here because it is not, you know, a one-country mission. It has to be a consensus," he replied to a question on the matter.

According to the top Estonian military official, EU countries also need to understand at what level Ukrainian troops will be trained. In this context, he mentioned the training of large battlegroups and smaller specialized groups, such as minesweepers. Due to this, Pevkur proposed to extend the scope of the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine). He noted that it is "quite safe" to train smaller groups on Ukrainian territory.

The EUMAM Ukraine mission involves 24 EU countries and was launched by the EU on October 17, 2022. Its mandate expires in October, but Brussels intends to extend it. According to open sources, some of the servicemen trained in the EU are participating in the armed incursion into Russia’s borderline Kursk Region. According to the German Defense Ministry, the EU countries would have trained 60,000 Ukrainian troops on their soil as of August 31.

Until now, all the training of Ukrainian troops has been held only in the EU but amid personnel shortages, France, supported by Baltic countries and the European External Action Service (EEAS), suggested moving some training courses to Ukraine to speed up the process, dispatching European military instructors there. So far, this proposal has triggered serious differences of opinion. Several EU countries are against it, including Austria, Hungary and Germany.

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Ukraine crisis EU Estonia

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