E. whereas the paramilitary units of the oligarchs and the far-right have not been dissolved and are continuing their violent activities in the country; whereas Ukraine’s Minister of Interior, Arsen Avakov, has offered these paramilitary units new heavy weapons, including tanks and armoured personnel carriers, and given them enhanced brigade status; whereas Vadim Troyan, the deputy commander of the right-wing Azov Regiment and active member of the paramilitary organisation Patriot of Ukraine, has been appointed by the Ukrainian Minister of Interior as the head of the Kiev police; whereas Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn, who has openly promoted Jo ...[+++]seph Goebbel’s ideology, will head up propaganda and analysis in the Security Service of Ukraine;

E. whereas on 5 September 2014 the Trilateral Contact Group agreed on a ceasefire, which entered into force on the same day; whereas since then the ceasefire regime has been violated by the separatists and Russian forces on a daily basis; whereas Russia continues to support the separatist militias through the provision of a steady flow of weapons, ammunition, armoured vehicles, equipment and mercenaries, as well as of regular Russian units, including main battle tanks, sophisticated anti-aircraft systems and artillery;

27. Deplores the widespread overlapping of defence programmes in the EU, such as the more than 20 armoured vehicle programmes, the 6 different attack submarine programmes, the 5 ground-to-air missile programmes and the 3 combat aircraft programmes, and its consequences, namely that economies of scale are not achieved, limited economic resources are wasted, and the prices of European defence equipment are over-inflated, which moreover leads to continuing fragmentation of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB), h ...[+++]ampers the competitiveness of the whole security-related industrial sector in Europe and in this regard directly endangers technological leadership and employment;

F. whereas the proposed deployment would include an EU military force of up to 4 000, equipped, among other weaponry, with armoured vehicles and helicopters, acting in a combat mission under Chapter VII for the UN Charter,

in order to deter any potential aggressor, EUFOR must have the necessary number of troops and must be equipped appropriately; it must be able to secure its supply lines and conduct long-range patrols with armoured vehicles, helicopters (including transport and attack helicopters) and reconnaissance planes;

The plan is to move all but a company's worth of armoured fighting vehicles from every infantry battalion to a new experimental centre to save money on maintenance costs — and not, as is now being claimed, modernization of that army or of its equipment.