France leads initiative on sending military trainers to Ukraine

France is seeking to assemble a coalition of European countries willing to send military trainers to Ukraine as western allies look for ways to speed up Kyiv’s recruitment efforts in the face of Russia’s renewed offensive.

More than 100,000 Ukrainian servicemen have completed training abroad — mostly in Poland, Germany and the UK — since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, according to Ukraine’s General Staff.

But Ukrainian officials say it would be more efficient to send western army personnel to train them locally — especially as Russia has intensified its aerial attacks and made some territorial gains in northern and eastern Ukraine. Some western allies have already provided limited training in Ukraine.

President Emmanuel Macron is expected to unveil France’s plan to send army trainers next Thursday when he hosts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Normandy along with other leaders, including US President Joe Biden, on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day, according to people familiar with the matter.

Macron’s proposal would entail French soldiers training Ukrainian personnel for tasks including demining operations or repairing and maintaining military equipment. It could end up involving dozens or hundreds of troops. 

The French president had opened the door to such a move in late February when he said sending western troops to Ukraine “could not be ruled out”, sparking a backlash from Germany and other Nato countries that rejected the idea as a risky escalation.  

“[Paris] has been working for a while now with the Ukrainians on this,” said one person familiar with the preparations. “The strong view is that it makes sense, technically . . . But it won’t be a Nato initiative,” they added. 

France has held talks with several countries, including Estonia and Lithuania, that have already publicly signalled their willingness to take part in training missions. But specific plans had not been finalised, the people said, and might still change.

The commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, revealed the military training partnership with France on Monday, saying: “I have already signed documents that will allow the first French instructors to visit our training centres soon and get acquainted with their infrastructure and staff.”

The Ukrainian defence ministry rolled it back later, clarifying that Kyiv was “still in discussions with France” about the instructors.

Ukrainian officials say that it would be more efficient to provide some kinds of training in Ukraine rather than move men and heavy equipment to bases in Poland and Germany and then back to the front. They also see a western training mission as representing a new willingness by their allies to reconsider their self-imposed limits on involvement in the war.

Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told the Financial Times earlier this month that there were already “countries who are training soldiers on the ground” in Ukraine. She argued that if training personnel were attacked by Russian forces it would not automatically trigger Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence clause: “It is not how it works. It’s not automatic. So these fears are not well-founded.”

Zelenskyy’s office declined to comment on Thursday. The French defence ministry said it was still working with its Ukrainian counterparts “in particular to understand their exact needs”.

Asked for details on Tuesday at a press conference in Germany alongside chancellor Olaf Scholz, Macron did not deny the plans, but said he would “not comment on what were uncoordinated and unfortunate communications”.

“I will have the opportunity when President Zelenskyy comes to France next week to receive him and to express myself very precisely on what we are going to do,” he said.