French President Emmanuel Macron said that sending French instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian military personnel will not in any way affect the escalation of the war, in addition, many of the allies have already agreed to expand such a coalition.

"As for instructors on Ukrainian territory: we talked about this on February 26, if you remember. I note that President Zelenskyy and his Minister of Defense expressed very clearly the needs of Ukraine. Ukraine today is mobilizing much more people and they will need to be recruited. There will be dozens thousands of new soldiers. And it is much more effective and practical, under certain conditions, to form people on Ukrainian territory," Macron said at a press conference with Zelenskyy in Paris on Friday.

At the same time, he emphasized that France is not at war with Russia.

"We don't want escalation, but we want to do everything in our power to help Ukraine resist. Therefore, when Ukraine asks us to train its mobilized soldiers on its sovereign territory, is this escalation? No," he said.

"This is not sending European soldiers or allies to the front line. This is recognizing Ukrainian sovereignty on its territory," the French president added.

Macron also noted that on the issue of sending foreign instructors to Ukraine to train military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he would like to have a coalition. "And many of our partners have already given their consent," he said.

"We already know that we will not be alone, and we will use the next days to organize this broad coalition," the French president said.

In turn, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a press conference that "we support President Macron's initiative to send instructors to Ukraine."

"It just shortens the training time. What's the surprise? It's that NATO countries, many countries, they trained our military on their territories. The difference is that this is a shorter, more practical way. So I'm grateful for this initiative," he summarized.