French President Advocates for Western Instructors in Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to establish an “instructor coalition” to send Western instructors to Ukraine.

The Welt am Sonntag reported on this, citing diplomatic sources in Brussels.

According to the publication, last week, French Chief of Defence, Thierry Burkhard, sent letters to the missions of the United States and several European countries inviting them to join the multinational training coalition.

The Netherlands, Poland, the Baltic States, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have reportedly received such an invitation. However, according to the publication, Germany has not received an invitation.

Macron plans to implement the initiative under the auspices of the existing EU training mission in Ukraine (EUMAM). This will require a change in the mission’s mandate, but, as Welt points out, this is quite possible: the mission will still be reviewed this summer, and it will have to be extended in November.

It is noted that there is resistance to Paris’s ideas in Brussels: most EU countries would be against participating in a mission on the territory of Ukraine.

The governments of Italy, Germany, and Spain fear that training Ukrainian troops in a country where hostilities are taking place could create a significant risk of escalation and draw Western countries into the war.

However, according to Welt am Sonntag, there is also a widespread opinion in EU diplomatic circles that there are certainly good reasons from a military point of view to train Ukrainian soldiers on their soil.

In this case, the exercises will be tailored to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the military will not have to leave Ukraine for training.

Militarnyi reported on May 30, 2024, that France may soon deploy military trainers to Ukraine, despite the concerns of some allies.

France would initially send a limited number of personnel to assess the modalities of a mission before dispatching several hundred trainers, two of the diplomats said.

Training would center around demining, keeping equipment operational, and technical expertise for warplanes. Paris would also finance, arm, and train a Ukrainian mechanized brigade.