EU and Ukrainian flags. File photoBRUSSELS, Oct 17 At their regular meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, the EU foreign ministers are planning to approve a new tranche of financial assistance for the Ukrainian army, as well as the launch of a training mission to train the Ukrainian military.As he told reporters in Brussels a high-ranking European source, the sixth tranche of military assistance to Kyiv from the EU will amount to 500 million euros, the union will thus bring the total military assistance to 3.1 billion euros. These funds are allocated from the so-called European Peace Fund to partially compensate EU countries for the costs of military supplies already made to Ukraine.The EU will give Ukraine five billion euros of macro-financial assistance in three tranches. Also, a high-ranking EU official said that the ministers at a meeting on October 17 will make a formal decision to launch an EU training mission for the Ukrainian military. He explained that military training from Ukraine could start in mid-November, the project budget is already agreed. The European representative added that the issue of which countries will participate in the project and who will send their instructors to work in the mission is currently being negotiated. In total, 15,000 Ukrainian military personnel are planned to be trained in two years. The EU «will continue to provide military support to Ukraine so that it can withstand any attacks from Russia.» «We want to seek a diplomatic solution to this war as quickly as possible, but we will respond decisively to any escalation from Russia, strengthening military support for Ukraine,» Borrell said. Moscow had previously sent a note to NATO countries over arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any cargo that contains weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia. The Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation stated that the NATO countries are «playing with fire» by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov noted that pumping Ukraine with weapons from the West does not contribute to the success of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and will have a negative effect. >EU will start disbursing a new tranche of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine in October
