European Union defence ministers might agree in principle on Tuesday on setting up an EU military training mission for Ukraine, Josep Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, said.

Several EU countries have been training Ukrainian troops for a while individually, mainly enabling them to operate weapons that Western nations are delivering to the war-torn country.

“The situation on the ground continues to be very bad,” Mr Borrell said as he arrived at a meeting of EU defence ministers in Prague.

“We will continue supporting Ukraine with initiatives such as this training mission which ministers will discuss,” he added, pointing out that “a general, overall political agreement [on a joint training mission] is what I think we have to get today.”

“I hope we will have a political green light for this mission,” the official stressed, providing no further details.

Later in the day, EU foreign ministers, also meeting in Prague, may agree to tighten the issue of visas for Russians and start debating a wider ban on tourist visas, though EU officials said there was no agreement on that.