A majority of EU countries are open to training Ukrainian soldiers in Ukraine in case of a ceasefire, the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Friday.
“I welcome that there is broad support today to expand the [EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine] mandate to provide training and advice inside Ukraine after any truce,” she told reporters after an informal meeting of EU defense ministers in Copenhagen.
While French President Emmanuel Macron last year pitched training missions in Ukraine during wartime, any EU mission would take place only after the fighting stops. It would be one of the bloc’s contributions to European security guarantees aimed at preventing Ukraine from being attacked again, Kallas said.
Under EUMAM, 23 EU countries plus Norway and Canada have trained about 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers. But changing the mission’s mandate would require unanimity from the bloc’s 27 capitals, which gives pro-Russia Hungary a veto.
The ministers’ meeting comes one day after Russian bombs damaged the EU delegation’s building in Kyiv. That underlines the skepticism that Russian President Vladimir Putin is interested in stopping the war he started.
“Hopes of possible peace negotiations are at least naive. All Putin is doing is stalling, cheaply buying time to keep killing people,” Lithuania’s Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė told reporters ahead of the meeting.
Most EU defense ministers — minus Hungary — are also keen to use the remaining €6.6 billion in untapped cash left in the European Peace Facility to finance arms for Ukraine. Budapest has been blocking use of that money for months.
“All the countries today were raising this issue of unblocking, you don’t have to be part of it but let others do it,” Kallas told reporters. “Continued blocking of the EPF is not justified.”
In a bid to sway Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Donald Trump ally, she said the money could be used to directly purchase U.S. weapons for Ukraine under the new scheme agreed by the U.S. president and NATO allies last month.
Echoing messages from France, Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, urged European countries to step up in pledging security guarantees for Ukraine. “The Americans have been clear that Europe needs to be leading, so that’s what we need to show,” she said.
