France to transfer 12 more Caesar howitzers to Ukraine

France's Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said that France would transfer 12 more Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, Le Monde reports.

"They (12 Caesar self-propelled howitzers, ed.) will be financed within the support fund of 200 million euros, which the parliament approved," said Lecornu at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian colleague, defense minister Oleksii Reznikov.

According to him, France will also send 150 soldiers to Poland to train 600 Ukrainians per month and train a total of 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers by summer.

The 12 Caesar guns that France will supply to Ukraine "in the coming weeks" are added to the 18 Caesar already delivered by France — one of which is out of use — as well as the 19 Caesar guns promised by Denmark in Kyiv mid-January.

Le Monde reports that Copenhagen had ordered these artillery pieces from the French group Nexter between 2017 and 2019. But deliveries have been delayed, and only a few copies have already been delivered. "We have now a mass [of Caesar howitzers] which is not negligible,"  Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Tuesday.

Oleksii Reznikov "came to detail the needs of Ukraine, of which aviation is a part," continued Sébastien Lecornu, reaffirming, like Emmanuel Macron the day before, that there is "no taboo" concerning the supply of fighter aircraft to Kyiv under certain conditions.

Reference

French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out the supply of fighter jets to Ukraine, noting that nothing is prohibited.

He told BFM TV, answering a question about the possible supply of fighter jets to Ukraine, that "in principle, nothing is prohibited."

At the same time, he added that military aid to Ukraine should not be "escalating" and "weaken the French army."

Yesterday, the Ministers of Defense of France, Sébastien Lecornu, and Australia, Richard Marles, agreed to supply Ukraine with several thousand 155-millimeter projectiles of joint production to support it in the war against russia.

Italy and France agreed on a joint order of 700 Aster-30 missiles worth 2 billion euros for the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air defense system. It is this system that both countries plan to provide to Ukraine, the French publication l'Opinion reported.