The Polish government will train a unit of Ukrainian exiles to be deployed in their home country, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
“In Poland, we are beginning to train the first Ukrainian brigade composed of volunteers from inside Poland. We have up to a million Ukrainians of both genders, and several thousands of them have already registered for the draft,” Sikorski said during a NATO Public Forum on Wednesday.
The Polish move comes only a few days after Warsaw and Kyiv signed a bilateral security agreement; one of the provisions called for training Ukrainians for war.
Earlier this year Ukraine adopted a law increasing the pace of mobilization, as it desperately needs new troops to rotate exhausted soldiers and replenish losses on the war front with Russia.
Under the new law, Kyiv obliged Ukrainian men living abroad to renew their military draft information online and encouraged them to return to Ukraine and join the fight.
“Interestingly, many of them want to serve and rotate their compatriots, but they say: ‘We don’t want to be thrown into the battle without being properly trained and equipped.’ And we’re going to do this for them,” Sikorski said.
“And then they will be available to the Ukrainian government as a unit with the right to return to Poland after their rotation,” he added.
He encouraged other European countries also hosting male Ukrainian refugees or with significant Ukrainian minorities to do the same.
“If every European country did that, Ukraine would have several brigades,” Sikorski said.
The post Poland begins training Ukrainian volunteer brigade appeared first on Politico.
