France's Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu announced on his account on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that a contract was concluded for the supply of 12 CAESAR self-propelled howitzers for Defense Forces of Ukraine, which were purchased with the funds of Ukraine. The agreement was signed during the DFNC2 Industrial Forum in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
Read more: Ukraine Will Be Able to Produce 155 mm Shells, Repair Caesar Howitzers Under KNDS License
In his post, Minister Lecornu emphasized that "increasing the production capacity of our defense industry makes it possible to support Ukraine" - the message probably refers, first of all, to the increase in the pace of production of CAESAR self-propelled howitzers.
We remind you that earlier in April of this year, Sebastien Lecornu told about the fact that CAESAR's production rate had increased from two to six vehicles per month from February 2022, and plans for the development of production foresee the achievement of an indicator of 12 units per month. Probably, from April this year the rate of production of self-propelled artillery systems in France could increase by several units or even more.
As Lecornyu reported in January 2024, as of the beginning of the year, the Defense Forces of Ukraine had 49 CAESAR self-propelled guns in their assets, 30 of them from France and 19 from Denmark (not including the lost machines). At the same time, the France's Minister of the Armed Forces announced the launch of the so-called "artillery coalition", which plans to supply Ukraine with 78 CAESAR self-propelled guns. At that time, it was reported that as part of this initiative, Ukraine directly ordered six machines at its own expense.
It can be mentioned here that within the framework of this initiative, 5 million euros were allocated for the purchase of one self-propelled gun by Luxembourg - it is the smallest NATO member country, which, however, allocated 16% of its defense budget to Ukraine in defense aid in 2022.
Read more: Luxembourg Contributes to Artillery Coalition: How Many Caesar Howitzers Ukraine to Receive
