During his speech this Thursday, Emmanuel Macron mentioned the project of training Ukrainian soldiers by French instructors but ambiguity remains on the location of such an operation.
Emmanuel Macron spoke on TF1 and France 2 this Thursday evening. He again raised the case of Ukraine and reaffirmed his support for the country which is still fighting against Russia. “We still have the same philosophy, we help the Ukrainians to resist. But we do not want the escalation of the war and in no case are we at war against Russia and its people,” he said. first declared. The president will meet again with Volodymyr Zelensky late this Friday afternoon, a meeting which will be followed by a press conference which should clarify the announcements made the day before.
In recent days, it is the subject of the training of Ukrainian soldiers by French instructors that raises questions. Last week, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army said that France would send instructors to Ukraine to train the country’s troops. However, this has not been made official and this possibility is still under discussion.
The Kremlin has, however, already warned that it would not rule out hitting these instructors if such a decision were taken. “It doesn’t matter whether they are French or not. No instructor responsible for training Ukrainian soldiers has any immunity,” responded the Kremlin spokesperson.
Training in France or Ukraine?
During his speech, Emmanuel Macron returned to this subject. “What we are proposing is to train 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers, to equip them, to train them, to provide them with ammunition, weapons, which will allow them to defend their soil,” announced the president. The Head of State insisted that this was a request from the Ukrainians: the country’s Minister of Defense thus requested, in an official letter, aid for training orchestrated on Ukrainian soil .
Emmanuel Macron nevertheless clarified that the objective was not “to go and train in the combat zone” but that “to go and train someone in the west zone, which is a free zone, is not aggressive at all”. ‘with regard to Russia’. The project would therefore still be under discussion: “I did not say that today you have trainers on the French ground nor that we are going to do it tomorrow, what I am telling you is why would we exclude it “.
The president also wants to train Ukrainian pilots on French soil following the sale of Mirage 2000-5, French combat aircraft, to enable them to protect their soil. “We are going to propose to President Zelensky that the pilots be trained this summer, it normally takes 5 to 6 months,” he announced.