Renewal of troops, rotations on the front… Why does Ukraine need European instructors on its territory?

A “coalition of instructors” coming from different European countries – notably France – and responsible for training Ukrainian army brigades in Ukraine. This announcement could be made at the end of the Ukrainian president’s official visit to France, Friday June 7, immediately after commemorative ceremonies of the Landing, to which Volodymyr Zelensky is also invited.

The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army said at the end of May that France would send “shortly” instructors to train the troops of this country. An announcement that kyiv and Paris have delayed while Moscow has not ruled out hitting French instructors who would be deployed in the country. This training project in Ukraine by Western instructors of Ukrainian soldiers has in any case been in preparation for weeks and corresponds to an express request from the Ukrainians.

Ukraine has a major problem with its army. It is struggling to renew its troops on the 1,200 km of front which tears its territory apart. Lowering the mandatory conscription age has not helped matters. However, before putting fresh troops into combat, they must first be trained with basic infantry combat training provided in part by Westerners: 52,000 new Ukrainian soldiers were thus trained in France, Poland, Britain.

But the Ukrainian army also trains its new recruits in Ukraine and to do so is obliged to extract its most seasoned soldiers from the front line, to employ them as instructors. Replacing these Ukrainian instructors with Western soldiers would allow the Kiev army to employ its own cadres in combat. Furthermore, having this training take place as much as possible in Ukraine would make it possible to shorten the troop renewal loop and their rotations on the ground.

In fact, Western military instructors in Ukraine would not be a real novelty: specialists providing training to Ukrainians, particularly on the most sophisticated weapons systems, have already been at work in Ukraine for months, if not longer. From a Ukrainian source, we confirm that French soldiers have been in Ukraine to provide training since at least 2023.