France to send heavy artillery to Ukraine
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Paris will be sending more arms to Ukraine in the coming days, not revealing the exact amount of anything, but the package seems sizeable.
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CAESAR self-propelled 155 mm howitzer
France is sending several heavy artillery pieces to Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said Friday, amid a heavy flow of Western weapons to arm Kiev in the face of Russia in light of the ongoing war in the country.
"We are delivering significant equipment, from Milan (anti-tank missiles) to Caesar (self-propelled howitzers)," Macron told regional newspaper Ouest-France.
"I think we have to continue on this route. Always with the red line that we will not become parties to the conflict," he claimed despite backing one party to the conflict against the other.
France will send "several Caesar artillery cannons and thousands of shells," Defense Minister Florence Parly confirmed on Twitter.
La France continue de soutenir l’Ukraine sur le plan militaire : le Président de la République a acté la livraison de plusieurs canons d'artillerie Caesar et de milliers d'obus. Nous sommes aux côtés du peuple ukrainien.
— Florence Parly (@florence_parly) April 22, 2022
The Caesar, a 155 mm howitzer mounted on a six-wheeled truck chassis and produced by Nexter, a partly state-owned weapons firm, is capable of firing shells at ranges that exceed 40 km.
Paris did not get into the number of missiles and howitzers France would be providing to Ukraine, saying it did not want to "reveal operational information."
However, it revealed that the anti-tank missiles had already been delivered to Ukraine, while howitzers would "move in the coming days."
France will also train some 40 Ukrainian soldiers to use these weapons on Saturday, the presidency said, adding to the packages of billions of dollars of arms and military equipment sent to Kiev since the war began, not to mention the previous military training provided to Ukrainian soldiers at the hands of NATO and the US.
Ukraine has long been pressing the West to send more arms to the country in a campaign spearheaded by President Volodymyr Zelensky to garner more arms in the face of Russia.
Though some countries have responded to these requests, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, some countries, like Europe's biggest economy, Germany, have shown reluctance when it came to arming Kiev, citing fear of further antagonizing Moscow by delivering more powerful arms for Ukraine.
"There is no textbook for this situation where you can look up at what point we will be seen as party to the conflict," Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the weekly, Der Spiegel, on Friday.
He did add, though, that Berlin would replace Soviet-made weapons sent to Ukraine from Eastern Europe with new German-made ones.
German media had reported Thursday that Germany was pondering giving armored vehicles to Slovenia in return for a shipment of Soviet-made T-72 tanks to Ukraine in light of mounting pressures on Berlin to pump more arms to Kiev.
Under the swap deal, Germany will send Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Fuchs armored personnel carriers to its eastern NATO partner, Germany's n-tv broadcaster said.
"This is a debate that goes to the heart of Germany's political life, it's a sovereign choice that belongs to Germany and we respect it," Macron told the newspaper, revealing that he had talked to Scholz not too long ago.
