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This is my fourth war-time visit to Ukraine.

Today, we have been witnessing an exercise of our Ukrainian training mission for the police (EUAM Ukraine), and in particular to support the Ukrainian forces when they retake control of the liberated territories in order to stabilise them. 

We are training more than 150 members of the National Police and the National Guard, who will become trainers of other comrades in order to - in cascade - provide training to thousands of security officers of the Ukrainian bodies. Thank you to the Minister of Interior [Ihor Volodymyrovych Klymenko] for accompanying me. Because they face – you face – difficult situations when they retake control of the liberated territories because the civilian infrastructures have been destroyed, everything has been looted. They have to restore law and order.

And they have to face difficult situations, like for example discovering mass graves, and then having to inform the relatives. And this is not a joke. This is something that has to be done with the adequate psychological capacity in order to avoid as much as possible traumatic psychological situations for the families. And they have to take care of the traps, bombs, hidden mines that they found, and the [that] Russians have left when they withdrew.

And this is something that requires training, and that is what we are doing with this specific training mission for security and police forces. I want to thank the Minister of Interior and the heads of the National Guard and National Police, for the work they are doing that require specific skills. In some Member States of the European Union, we have had to face similar situations, so we have a certain expertise in dealing with that – and that is what we want to offer to our Ukrainian comrades. 

A field like this, it looks like a theatre but in real life, it is not a theatre. In real life, bombs explode. In real life, people are being killed. In real life, you discover mass graves. And in real life, the people who are in the mass graves have relatives. All of that is happening in the liberated territories. And I think this is not directly related to fighting in the frontline but [is] also part of the resilience of the Ukrainian society, the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the capacity of their [inaudible]. 

So, allow me to say that I am very proud of this cooperation that the European Union is doing with the Ukrainian security forces. And we will continue doing that at the micro level – small things affecting individuals, avoiding losses of human lives and enduring the capacity of the Ukrainians to face the invasion. 

Thank you, Minister, and thank you the head of the National Guard, to the police officers and thank you also to the trainees, to the trainers who belong to several bodies of the European Union security – like the Spanish Guardia Civil, the Portuguese Guarda Republicana, and many others. 

I think we will train 150 [Ukrainian forces] who will be training others, and others, and others – and in a pyramid, the whole security forces of Ukraine will have the adequate training to face something which is much more difficult than you could expect. To retake control of your territory, to restore life, to support the population, to make public institutions work again.

Thank you. 

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-252320