French President reveals how to supply artillery shells to Ukraine

“The first priority is ammunition. We are ready to use all our stocks from countries that have artillery shells and we want to identify third countries that can participate in supplying different types of artillery shells, and at the same time, go to third countries to find new solutions for the production and procurement of different components, especially gunpowder,” he said at a press conference after a meeting on support for Ukraine in Paris. The press conference was broadcast on the official account of the Elysee Palace on the social network X.

Czech President Petr Pavel said earlier that Prague had found an opportunity outside the European Union to buy 800,000 artillery shells that it could deliver to Ukraine within weeks with financial support from the United States, Germany, Sweden or other countries. In early February, the EU newspaper Politico reported that the Czech Republic was looking for ammunition from arms companies such as South Korea, Türkiye and South Africa.

His proposal was later supported by Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

France has no plans to deliver Mirage fighters to Kiev

French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris was not negotiating with Kiev on the supply of Mirage fighter jets.

Earlier, Vladimir Zelensky said on French TV channel LCI that he was negotiating with President Macron about the transfer of Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Kiev.

"As of today we are not negotiating about Mirage, but we are training pilots. Of the eight existing cooperation links, now there is a ninth cooperation link on long-range weapons, there is one on aviation, namely F-16 fighters. We do not have F-16s because we have our own aircraft. We are studying our own capabilities in this regard, to see if it will be useful for the defense of Ukraine," he said at a press conference.

Last week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that the first F-16 fighter jets could be delivered to the Ukrainian armed forces in the spring. According to her, only technical reasons could delay the delivery of these aircraft.

The Netherlands and Denmark were the first to announce an agreement to supply F-16 fighter jets to Kiev. The White House confirmed that Ukraine will receive the aircraft from a third country after its pilots complete training. Dutch Defense Minister Kaisa Ollongren said that The Hague expects to send the first batch of F-16s to Kiev in 2024. As Russian Ambassador to The Hague Alexander Shulgin noted earlier, the Dutch are “turning a blind eye” to the fact that supplying their F-16 fighter jets to Kiev will prolong the conflict in Ukraine and make the Ukrainian people even more miserable.