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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 to transfer Mirage-2000 fighter jets to Ukraine

France will transfer Mirage-2000 fighter jets to Ukraine and train their Ukrainian pilots as part of a new military cooperation with Kyiv as it fights the Russian invasion, President Emmanuel Macron announced.

France to transfer Mirage-2000 fighter jets to Ukraine

“Tomorrow we will launch a new cooperation and announce the transfer of Mirage 2000-5,” fighter jets to Ukraine made by French manufacturer Dassault and train their Ukrainian pilots in France, Macron told French TV.

Macron said he would offer to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the two meet for talks at the Elysée Palace in Paris on Friday that the pilots be trained from this summer.

“You normally need between five, six months [training]. So by the end of the year there will be pilots. The pilots will be trained in France,” he said.

He did not specify how many of the fighter jets would be delivered, and the defence ministry did not elaborate when contacted by AFP.

Macron said Ukraine faced a ‘huge challenge’ training soldiers as it sought to mobilise tens of thousands more troops to go to the front.

He said France would equip and train a brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers so they can defend themselves when they return to Ukraine from training.

Kyiv has been pushing Europe to increase its military support, with Russia in recent months gaining the upper hand on the battlefield.

Zelensky’s visit to France, where on Thursday he attended ceremonies for the 80th anniversary of D-Day and crossed paths with US President Joe Biden, is seen as a crucial time to drum up more help.

Macron said Ukraine has asked Western allies to send military instructors to train its forces on its soil to meet the growing challenge to build up troop numbers.

“The Ukrainian president and his minister of defence asked all the allies – 48 hours ago in an official letter – saying ‘we need you to train us quicker and that you do this on our soil’,” Macron said.

There had been speculation that Macron could swiftly announce the sending of French instructors to Ukraine, even after his talks with Zelensky on Friday.

But he said France and its allies would come together and decide and also emphasised that he did not believe any such moves by Paris were ‘escalatory’.

“We are working with our partners and we will act on the basis of a collective decision,” he said.

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