France prepares to send military instructors to Ukraine – Reuters

France may soon send military instructors to Ukraine, despite concerns from some allies and criticism from Russia, media reports indicate. 

Reuters's sources claim that France may announce its decision next week during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

The diplomats reported that Paris hopes to form and lead a coalition of countries that will offer such assistance to Kyiv in its military efforts, even though some of its European Union partners fear that this could make direct conflict with Russia more likely. 

The two diplomats said France would initially send a limited number of personnel to assess the feasibility of the mission and then send several hundred instructors.

The sources noted that the training will focus on demining, equipment maintenance and technical expertise for military aircraft. 

Paris will also finance, arm and train a Ukrainian motorised brigade. 

"The arrangements are very advanced and we could expect something next week," one of the sources said.

Earlier, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of Ukrainian Armed Forces, said that France was ready to send its instructors involved in training Ukrainian soldiers directly to Ukraine, and the first of them would soon come to get an overview of the capabilities of Ukrainian training centres.

Afterwards, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces stated that the deployment of French military instructors to Ukraine to train soldiers is still under consideration. 

In mid-May, The New York Times reported that some North Atlantic Alliance members were privately discussing the prospect of deploying military instructors or contractors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers and assist with equipment repairs.