Ukraine received the Crotale air defense system from France – DW – 11/20/2022
French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu plans to transfer French Crotale anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine. He informed about this in interview edition of Le Journal du Dimanche, published on the night of Sunday, November 20.
In a word, as part of the latest deliveries, his Ukrainian military received two batteries of Crotale air defense systems and two long-range multiple rocket launchers (LMRS). In addition, the Ukrainian side asks to provide it with radars, but this request is still “under consideration”.
The minister reminded that the French parliament also voted to create a support fund for Ukraine in the amount of 200 million euros. This allows Ukrainians to place orders for equipment and military equipment in French companies or provide service for already delivered systems. Funds from this fund can also be used to purchase French Bastion armored vehicles or “floating bridges”, Lecornu added.
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France educates Ukrainians
The minister also reported that “400 Ukrainian servicemen have already undergone training, in particular on the coating supplied by France.”
For the first time, Lecornu mentioned the intention of Paris to transfer the short-range Crotale air defense system to Kyiv, which “will be especially useful in the fight against drones and against aerial bombardment”, in an interview with Le Parisien, in mid-October. At that time, he announced that France has 12 batteries of such air defense systems in service, but did not specify exactly how many systems will be provided to Ukraine, remaining only that “it will be essential so that the Ukrainians can protect their skies.”
Paris plans to replace the transferred Crotale batteries of Kyiv with modern Mamba air defense systems.
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The largest defense budget since World War II
The transfer of parts of its weapons to Ukraine also brought to the fore the issue of France’s own defense needs. thus, in addition to the accumulated replacement of air defense systems, the country also needs to replenish the stocks of self-propelled artillery installations (ACS) Caesar. France has already handed over 12 such self-propelled guns to Ukraine and continues discussions on the delivery of six more.
All this led to the fact that the defense budget of the country for 2023 reaches the highest level since the Second World War – 44 billion euros. For comparison, in 2017, when Emmanuel Macron was elected president for the first time, the defense budget was 32.3 billion euros.