As Ukraine enters its third year of war with Russia, Western aid is trying to be long-term. France announced, Thursday, January 18, the launch of a coalition responsible for organizing and maintaining the support of kyiv’s allies in terms of artillery. The “fires”, as the military call them, are today an essential vector for holding the front line, frozen since the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive launched at the start of the summer of 2023.
This new coalition, which will be led by France and the United States, “aims to unite the efforts of participating nations to help Ukraine have, in the short and long term, an artillery force adapted to the needs of the counter-offensive and its army of tomorrow”, we indicate in Paris. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, was to officially inaugurate the first meeting of this body on Thursday in Paris, in the presence of representatives from twenty-three countries. His Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, who was to be present, finally canceled his visit ” For safety reasons “ and was only to participate by videoconference.
This new working group is one of the “capacity coalitions” decided in October 2023 by the contact group for the defense of Ukraine, also called the Ramstein group, which coordinates the contributions of the fifty allied countries of kyiv. Several of these coalitions have been launched in recent weeks: the United Kingdom and Norway are leading the coalition devoted to maritime armaments, Estonia and Luxembourg that on information technologies, the United States and the -Say from the one about the air forces…
Bringing some order into military aid
Paris also obtained the right to lead, alongside Germany, the anti-aircraft defense coalition, the first working meetings of which took place in December in Berlin. A way for France to show its support for Ukraine, but also to hold its ground against its partners, while it is regularly criticized for the supposed weakness of its military support. “France wanted to be present in critical segments for Ukrainians”confirms a French military source.
Even if no capital expresses it this way, these coordinations were also created to bring some order to the military aid provided to kyiv. In a constant search for new equipment to supply their troops, the Ukrainians have accepted all the transfers proposed by their allies, and today find themselves at the head of a very heterogeneous fleet, difficult to maintain and supply with ammunition. “The idea is to push Ukraine to rationalize its defense tools, with equipment that meets NATO standards and is interoperable with our armies”explains a senior French officer.
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