Sweden is in favor of developing a European Union military training mission in Ukraine, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultkvist said yesterday through a spokesman.
Stockholm believes that a strong EU is needed to promote peace and security, given the current global situation, the spokesman explained. Such training missions would help countries face security challenges, he added.
Sweden was in favor of the possible development of a European educational mission in Ukraine when the issue was raised, he added.
The EU and NATO have recently expressed concern about the movement of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border.
“Large and unusual concentrations of Russian forces are being observed in the region,” Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, told a joint news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuprom.
Any new provocation or aggression by Russia is of great concern, Stoltenberg insisted, adding that NATO is monitoring the situation “very closely”.
Since 2014, the Ukrainian army has been fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the region known as Donbass – the Luhansk and Danieck regions. The West accuses Russia of supporting the separatists militarily and financially, which the Kremlin denies.
Moscow has dismissed criticism of its troop movements in recent weeks, saying it was its sovereign right to deploy its armed forces inside Russia.
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