Canberra Considers Providing Military Training Support to Kiev

In July, the Australian PM said that his government would provide additional military assistance to Ukraine, including 20 Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles. Australia's total military assistance to Ukraine currently stands at about $385 million.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stated that Canberra would consider a request from Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky to offer military training support to Kiev amid Moscow’s ongoing special operation to "demilitarize and de-Nazify" Ukraine.

Albanese told the ABC News channel on Wednesday “the suggestion is whether Australians could provide support for training outside of Ukraine in Europe, and we'll give consideration to that as we'll give consideration to the other requests.” He said that the Australian government will make an announcement to this effect “at an appropriate time.”

The Australian PM also pledged to continue providing military support to Ukraine, describing his country as “the largest non-NATO contributor.”

The statement came after Albanese’s meeting with Zelensky in Kiev following Moscow’s missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in the wake of the October 8 terrorist attack on Crimea's Kerch Strait Bridge. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week that Moscow targeted Ukrainian energy, military command, and communications facilities in different parts of Ukraine with high-precision weapons.

Putin underscored that Moscow could not leave crimes committed by Kiev against Russian civilian infrastructure unanswered, referring to the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, Kiev’s attempts to blow up one of the sections of the TurkStream gas pipeline, and efforts by Ukraine's security services to target Russia's Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

Australia’s opposition leader Peter Dutton has, meanwhile, said that the coalition would support Australian trainers going to “adjoining or adjacent countries or third countries.”

Dutton added that it would allow Australia to “deliver assistance to Ukraine soldiers and to those on the ground to help them get the most out of the equipment that we are delivering to try and keep people safe in that part of the world.”

The statement followed Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles rejecting earlier this month the possibility of Canberra joining a training mission that was earlier initiated by former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

In mid-June, BoJo proposed an initiative to provide Ukrainian troops with basic military training, with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days. He invited other nations in the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) and Canada to join the initiative.

The JEF, which was launched in 2014, is a UK-led group consisting of Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway. Most of the JEF members have already backed Johnson’s initiative.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that the West providing military support to Kiev would exacerbate the Ukraine conflict. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated late last week that the West’s supplies of long-rage weaponry to Kiev would become “red lines” for Moscow, which the ministry said had enough instruments to retaliate.