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- cross-posted to:
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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.
I wonder if the Ukrainian people would rather pay off loans or have their children stolen by Putin.
It’s a mystery for the ages.
Sure, and as I say I’m fully in support of Ukraine. I don’t want the support to stop - in fact I want more of it.
However, that doesn’t mean the people of the countries that are giving should just ignore how it’s being done, and what it might mean for the true financial health of their own country. It’s no good if politicians are fiddling the books and using it to justify padding their pockets with taxpayer money.