French military instructors to visit Ukrainian training centres soon, says Ukraine army chief

Syrskyi gave no further details but said he believed that France’s determination would encourage other partners to join this “ambitious project”.

The site of a glide bomb strike in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Ukraine’s Defence Ministry in a “clarification” issued later on X said Kyiv had been expressing interest in a project receiving foreign instructors since February.

“As of now, we are still in discussions with France and other countries on this issue,” it said.

French President Emmanuel Macron has opened the door to sending troops to Ukraine and at a conference in Paris on February 26 suggested that one area Western troops could help with would be to train Ukrainians in Ukraine.

France’s defence ministry said in a statement: “As already mentioned several times, training on Ukrainian soil is one of the projects discussed since the conference on support for Ukraine convened by the President of the Republic on February 26.

“Like all the projects discussed at that time, this track continues to be the subject of work with the Ukrainians, in particular to understand their exact needs.”

French President Emmanuel Macron in Dresden, Germany on Monday. Photo: AFP
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday joined Macron in warning that Europe was “mortal” in the face of Russian aggression.

“We can’t take for granted the foundations on which we have built our European way of living and our role in the world,” the two leaders wrote in a joint op-ed for the Financial Times newspaper.

“Our Europe is mortal, and we must rise to the challenge,” they wrote in the piece, published while the French president was on a state visit to Germany.

Macron also put his name to Scholz’s idea of a “Zeitenwende”, the word used by the chancellor to describe the historic shift in Germany’s attitude to defence, which has seen it massively boost military spending following the invasion of Ukraine.

“Looking back at the challenges over the last five years – be it the pandemic, the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine or increasing geopolitical shifts – it is clear: Europe is experiencing its Zeitenwende,” the leaders wrote.

The pair go on to lay out their ideas for the direction of the European Union in the term after coming EU elections on June 9.

Among the elements put forward by Macron and Scholz were the need to deepen the EU’s single market, and boost investment, while reducing the bloc’s dependence on trading partners for key supplies.

The joint mission statement comes after a period of marked tensions between the leaders of the EU’s two biggest powers.

Scholz and Macron have clashed in particular over the right approach to the war in Ukraine, with the French president striking a more strident tone against Russia.

The French and German leaders will meet in person on Tuesday in Meseberg, close to Berlin, for a joint Franco-German meeting of ministers on the third day of Macron’s Germany visit.

Also on Monday, Russian air defence units downed a drone outside Moscow, said Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov.

Vorobyov, writing on Telegram, said fragments from the downed drone landed on a private house at about 9pm local time in Balashikha, just east of the capital. Those inside the house escaped unharmed.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported that air defence units had destroyed a “small-scale airborne object”.

Tass news agency, quoting aviation services, said aircraft had been temporarily directed away from flight paths northeast of Moscow but airports in the Moscow region were later reported to be operating normally.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

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