Germany plans to train Ukrainian military at battalion, brigade staff levels

This was stated by Major General Christian Freuding, Head of the Bundeswehr’s Special Staff for Ukraine at the German Ministry of Defense, in a comment to Ukrinform.

"Training is a matter of consideration with our Ukrainian friends and partners. I sat together with Rustem Umerov yesterday on how we can improve our training effort. There are certain ideas on training especially your battalion headquarters, brigade headquarters, to make them more efficient and combat effective," the General said.

He noted that while the training courses are improving, the availability of time for Ukrainian military personnel to attend training often remains an open question.

"We would argue we need, say, six weeks, and the Ukrainian MoD and General Staff argue that they can afford two, three, or four weeks only, and both opinions are correct," Freuding explained.

The sides always seek compromises regarding the duration of training and the scope of knowledge that can be transferred within limited time frames, he added. "It's a dilemma, but over the last two and a half years, we’ve been finding good compromises," said the General.

When asked about the possibility of conducting training within Ukraine, the German General expressed skepticism about its practicality.

"It is more risky because the Russians will try to hit any training facilities with NATO soldiers on Ukrainian soil. That would require from us much more organizational effort," Freuding explained.

"We in Germany and all other NATO member states in Europe have excellent training facilities with much better training conditions. So I think it’s a much better solution to do the training in Germany, in Europe because we can be much more effective and invest in instructors, intensifying the training as we don’t need to take care about security," the Bundeswehr General concluded.

As reported by Ukrinform, French intellectuals and military experts have called on President Macron to initiate the creation of a European coalition of military instructors to work in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, European Union countries have yet to reach a consensus on relocating training for Ukrainian soldiers under the EU Military Assistance Mission (EUMAM Ukraine) to Ukrainian territory.