The EU has reached an agreement with Ukraine to carry out a military training mission in the country, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced on Monday, Politico reported.
The deal follows a meeting between Kuleba and his EU counterparts and comes amid severe warnings from the United States and other Western nations that Russia has decided to invade Ukraine, which is currently surrounded by approximately 190,000 Russian troops.
"We reached an agreement with the EU in principle that the European Union will roll out [an] advisory training military mission in Ukraine," Kuleba told reporters, adding that the assistance is not about "combat forces" but "is a new element in the cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union."
In addition, the EU on Monday also approved €1.2 billion in emergency financial assistance for Ukraine and is readying sanctions that can be implemented on Russia if Moscow does invade the country.
Although the EU mission and support is a step Kyiv has been requesting recently, it is very limited and will not get rid of the threat Ukraine faces from the Russian military, with one diplomat saying the EU will likely send only a few dozen officials to Ukraine at most.
For now, the plan is to help bolster Ukraine's professional military education by using the €5 billion fund, but officials said there is also the possibility of boosting the support into a full-fledged mission sometime in the future.
In a separate development, the EU ministers on Monday also decided to sanction five more officials for backing actions and implementing policies that undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine, as the EU does not recognize Moscow's annexation of either Crimea or of the city of Sevastopol.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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