France will send “significant quantities” of armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, announced French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu in an interview published Monday evening.
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“To move quickly in areas under enemy fire, armies need armored vehicles,” he said in an interview with Parisian-Today in France and broadcast on the daily’s website.
France will therefore “deliver, in significant quantities, transport vehicles of this type, VAB (Armoured Forward Vehicles), which are armed”, he adds.
Mr. Lecornu also confirms the sending to Ukraine of six additional Caesar guns, the flagship of French artillery, beyond the twelve already deployed once morest the Russians.
However, he does not give any details on the date scheduled for the dispatch of this additional reinforcement which had been announced by the Head of State Emmanuel Macron on June 16 during his visit to Kyiv.
As for the delivery of anti-ship missiles, requested by Kyiv to “open breaches in this maritime blockade imposed by Russia and which deprives many countries of deliveries of cereals and raw materials”, this “is part of the files examined”, adds the Minister, without giving further details.
Since the beginning of the military offensive launched by Moscow in Ukraine on February 24, Paris has delivered to Kyiv, beyond Caesar cannons, Milan anti-tank missiles or even Mistral anti-aircraft missiles.
In mid-April, Florence Parly, then Minister of the Armed Forces, had estimated the military equipment delivered by France to Ukraine at more than one hundred million euros.
