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UKRAINE

France says to send Kyiv armoured vehicles within week

France said on Sunday it will begin delivering the armoured vehicles it has promised Ukraine in its war against Russia by next weekend.

French army soldiers ride in an AMX-10 RC armoured vehicle in a demonstration at a 2022 defence and security trade fair.
French army soldiers ride in an AMX-10 RC armoured vehicle in a demonstration at a 2022 defence and security trade fair. France said on Sunday it would begin delivering this type of light tank to Ukraine by next weekend. Photo: Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP

The vehicles, of the AMX-10 type and sometimes described as “light tanks”, are used for armed reconnaissance and attacks on enemy tanks.

The first vehicles will be sent to Ukraine “by the end of next week”, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu told Le Parisien newspaper’s Sunday edition.

He declined to specify the number of vehicles in the first batch, saying he did not want to give Russia any “strategic information”.

According to the French defence ministry, AMX-10s are highly mobile, “powerfully armed” and offer protection against light infantry fire.

Their combat weight is 20 tonnes, around a third of that of France’s Leclerc battle tanks.

The French armed forces have begun to replace AMX-10s, first developed in the 1970s, with more modern vehicles called Jaguar.

President Emmanuel Macron promised in early January that France would send AMX-10s, after months of hesitation because of fears that increased weapons deliveries could further escalate the conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

Training of Ukrainian crews on the AMX-10 was now “nearly complete”, Lecornu said.

Overall training of Ukrainian military was “intensifying”, Lecornu also said, both in France and Poland, a fellow NATO member.

Starting in March, 600 Ukrainian troops would undergo training every month, he said.

Asked about possible fighter aircraft deliveries to Ukraine, an urgent request by President Volodymyr Zelensky, Lecornu said the question was “not taboo”.

But he said such military aid posed complex “logistical and practical questions”.

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UKRAINE

France charges two Moldovans over coffin graffiti in Paris

French prosecutors on Saturday charged two Moldovans suspected of painting coffins and a slogan urging an end to Ukraine war on the facade of a prominent Paris newspaper, a judicial source said.

France charges two Moldovans over coffin graffiti in Paris

It was just the latest in a series of such acts in the capital in recent weeks. French officials have repeatedly warned of the risks of disinformation and other attacks by Russia over France’s support for Kyiv.

Tension between Paris and Moscow has increased since President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this year he had not ruled out sending troops to Ukraine.

The two men, who carried Moldovan passports, were arrested overnight Thursday-Friday after six red coffins and the phrase “Stop the Death, Mriya, Ukraine” were painted on the building of right-wing daily Le Figaro. Mriya means “dream” in Ukrainian.

They are being held on charges of destruction of property and participating in “an effort to demoralise the army to harm national defence in peacetime”, the source said.

Six similar coffins were found early Thursday on the facade of the Agence France-Presse headquarters in central Paris, not far from the Figaro offices.

A source close to the case said the two Moldovans claimed to have been paid around €100 to paint the graffiti.

A separate investigations has been opened after graffiti showing French Mirage fighter jets in the form of coffins were found last Tuesday in three districts of Paris. They included the phrase “Mirages for Ukraine”.

Similar graffiti was discovered on the walls of the AFP building Monday.

Macron announced in early June that France would send Mirage-2000 fighter jets to Ukraine and train their Ukrainian pilots as part of a new military cooperation with Kyiv.

On June 8, French police said they were holding three young Moldovans suspected of being behind inscriptions of coffins in Paris with the slogan “French soldiers in Ukraine”.

They were later charged with property damage and released.

Moldova’s Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi posted on X, formerly Twitter: “We regret and firmly condemn the incident”.

He said the “vandalism” was “part of hybrid tactics to harm our international image”.

Popsoi reiterated his comment on Saturday, denouncing an “instigation to hate”.

“We call on Moldovan citizens to be vigilant and not to allow themselves to be manipulated to the detriment of our country.”

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