- France has trained thousands of Ukrainians for a brigade that will soon enter the fight with Russia.
- The brigade will have French tanks, artillery, and missile systems.
A Ukrainian brigade made up of thousands of soldiers trained in France and armed with French-supplied tanks, artillery, and heavy weaponry is about to enter the fight against Russia.
For more than two months, thousands of troops have been training in eastern and southern France, according to the Associated Press.
A French military task force named Champagne has conducted the training. The report said more than 2,000 soldiers are now undergoing the final parts of training before they return to Ukraine.
The brigade — named "Anne of Kyiv" after a former Kyiv princess who became a queen of France — will eventually have 4,500 members.
It will also have 18 AMX 10 light tanks, 18 truck-mounted Caesar artillery pieces, 128 armored troop carriers, as well as anti-tank and antiaircraft missile systems, the French military said.
Before they traveled to France, most of the soldiers had only a few weeks' basic training, the French military said, according to AP.
A French colonel told the outlet "They have improved a lot. Now they are able to fight, they are able to maneuver. They are able to use the different specialists and to use the different equipment they will have on the battlefield."
The Ukrainian military is also training other troops for the brigade back in Ukraine, according to French authorities.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, groups of Ukrainian soldiers have undergone training by Western militaries in locations outside Ukraine.
Partly as a result, Ukraine's forces are considered significantly better trained than Russia's, though Russia has military advantages in other areas.
Western intelligence has pointed to Russian troops getting hardly any training before being sent to the front, and Russia's strategy to win appears to be based around trying to overwhelm Ukraine's much-smaller military through sheer numbers of troops and equipment.
The new Ukrainian brigade will enter the war at a critical time.
Russia has been slowly inching forward in eastern Ukraine, as Ukraine calls for more support from its allies. Ukrainian officials have also said that up to 11,000 North Korean troops are now in place to help Russia push back its forces in occupied Kursk.
At the same time, Ukraine is anxiously awaiting US President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House in January and who has repeatedly criticized the levels of US support sent to Ukraine.
Depending on Trump, the help that Europe is giving Ukraine, like France training one of its brigades, could become even more critical to Ukraine's ability to fight on.