French manufacturers have reduced the manufacturing times for some of the weapons systems they supply to Ukraine by half or more, as France increasingly switches away from its previous policy of dipping into its own military stocks to support the war effort against Russia’s invasion, France’s defense minister said in an interview published Thursday.
“The logic of ceding materiel taken from the armies’ stocks is reaching its end,” the minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in the interview with Le Parisien. “From now on, the solution is to directly connect French defense industries with the Ukrainian army.”
He cited the Caesar self-propelled 155 mm howitzer, made in France by Nexter, as an example of how French defense contractors are adopting a war footing. Caesars are among an array of Western-supplied artillery systems that have given Ukrainian gun crews an edge, especially when paired with high-precision munitions, against Russian artillery batteries using older Soviet-designed systems.
My issue is not about the loans though, it’s about politicians fluffing up the financial health of their country to justify pilfering the tax coffers for themselves.
I’m aware that the UK paid off the US for WW2. However the UK’s economy is vastly different to Ukraine’s, both present and historically. The comparison is not reasonable.
Again though, I don’t want aid to stop - I want more of it. I just want it done above board.