Ukraine-Russia war live: Belgium pledges dozens of F-16 fighter jets as Putin’s troops ‘massing on border’

EU ministers debated training Ukrainian forces in Ukraine but there is no clear common position yet, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday.

“About doing part of the training in Ukraine, there has been a debate, but (there) is not a clear common European position on that”, he said in a press conference.

European Union defence ministers are meeting in Brussels Tuesday to try again to overcome Hungary’s objections to providing billions of euros in military aid to Kyiv, in its third year of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.

This comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is to inspect the F-16 jets Belgium will send to his country. He is on a whirlwind two-day tour of Spain, Belgium and Portugal to drum up other support.

Poland’s foreign minister has said his country should not exclude the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and should keep Russian president Vladimir Putin in suspense over whether such a decision would ever be made.

Radek Sikorski made the comments in an interview published on Tuesday in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

“We should not exclude any option. Let Putin be guessing as to what we will do,” Mr Sikorski said when asked whether he would send Polish troops to Ukraine.

Mr Sikorski said he has gone to Ukraine with his family in the past to deliver humanitarian aid.

But a spokesperson for Poland’s defence ministry, Janusz Sejmej, told Polish media on Tuesday he had “no knowledge of that” when asked about a report in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine suggesting Poland might send troops to Ukraine.

The idea of sending foreign soldiers to Ukraine, which is battling Russian military aggression, was floated earlier this year in France, but no country, including Poland, has publicly embraced it.

Poland supports neighbouring Ukraine politically and by providing military equipment and humanitarian aid.

European Union ministers debated training Ukrainian forces in Ukraine but there is no clear common position yet, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday.

“About doing part of the training in Ukraine, there has been a debate, but (there) is not a clear common European position on that”, he said in a press conference.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has met with Belgium’s King Philippe on the second day of his European tour.

Earlier, Mr Zelensky met with the Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo. The pair signed a nearly €1 billion security agreement.

Ukraine will receive its first supplies of F-16 fighter jets “very soon” but around half of its desperately needed foreign military aid is arriving late, Kyiv’s defence minister has said.

Rustem Umerov, 42, told Reuters in an interview in Kyiv late on Monday that Russia was deploying more manpower and equipment to the front, more than 27 months after its full-scale invasion.

Kyiv’s forces have managed to stabilise the new front in the northeastern Kharkiv region where Russia attacked earlier this month. But Mr Umerov said Moscow was preparing for a new push.

“Their objective is to open a new front in the north to start using all their manpower, firing power, against us, they are continuing with their objective to destroy the nation,” he said.

“We are withstanding, but of course we need more weapons, we need more firing power, we need long-range missiles, not to allow them to enter our state.”

He said Ukraine was grateful for the military aid and weapons supplied by its partners, but that only half of the promised deliveries arrived on time. Every delay benefited Ukraine‘s much larger and better-equipped foe, with a front line stretching 750 miles.