Germany Against French Plans to Send Military Instructors to Ukraine

Emmanuel Macron is forming a coalition of Western states willing to send advisers to train Kiev’s troops on the ground.
Berlin will not support France’s proposal to send Western instructors to Ukraine to train its army, German news outlet Welt am Sonntag reported on Sunday, citing sources.
Earlier reports said that Macron had been trying to form a coalition willing to deploy specialists to train the Ukrainian military on the ground. Macron confirmed that at a press-briefing on Friday, adding that several nations had already agreed to join the effort.
According to information obtained by Welt, on the Macron’s orders, the chief of staff of the French Army, Gen. Thierry Burkhard, wrote to some of his NATO colleagues last week inviting them to take part in a training mission in Ukraine. The letter was reportedly addressed to the US and around ten European countries, including the UK, Poland, the Netherlands, the Baltic states, Denmark, and Sweden.
Germany, however, was not included in the dispatch, the newspaper claimed, because it had already made clear during recent negotiations in Brussels that German soldiers would not take part in a mission on Ukrainian soil. According to the publication, the German government, along with Italy and Spain, has expressed concern that training Kiev’s troops on site could escalate the conflict and drag the West into a war with Russia.
The US has also reportedly rejected the Macron’s idea of sending instructors to Kiev. US President Joe Biden expressed concern that NATO troops deployed to Ukraine, even as trainers, could end up in the line of fire.