EU defense ministers at an informal meeting in Brussels agreed on Wednesday to train an additional 20,000 military personnel for the Ukrainian army, Head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell has said.

At a press conference Borrell said EU officials have almost completed the mission of training almost 40,000 soldiers for the Ukrainian army. Now they have agreed to add another 20,000 soldiers to this number, so a total of 60,000 soldiers will be trained, he said.

According to him, this number will be reached by the end of the summer.

At the end of November, the EU Council decided to provide additional funding of EUR 194 million for the training of Ukrainian military personnel as part of the EU military assistance mission to Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine).

"Such support will be granted through the European Peace Facility (EPF) and take the form of necessary lethal and non-lethal equipment and supplies, as well as services to back the training activities," the council said in a communiqué issued in Brussels.

"The financial amount is increased by EUR 194 million totalling EUR 255 million," accoding to the document.

It emphasized that the purpose of this decision is to "continue supporting the capacity building of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by EUMAM, based on Ukrainian needs and taking into account the increasing scope and complexity of the training curriculum."