Russia launched 33 Iranian-designed drones on Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, as well as guided missiles on the large city of Kharkiv, in the east of the country, the Ukrainian army said. Anti-aircraft defense downed 22 of these drones, and Russian forces fired two S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles from the Belgorod border region, it said in a statement. “The occupiers attacked with 33 Shahed-136/131 attack drones from the Primorsko-Akhtarsk area and the Kursk region of the Russian Federation,” the Air Force said.
Information to remember:
- 33 Iranian-designed drones were launched on Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, as well as guided missiles on Kharkiv, the Ukrainian army said
- An “artillery coalition” for Ukraine must be launched this Thursday in Paris by the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu
Air defense systems in Ukraine’s eastern, southern and central regions shot down the attack drones, she added. The head of the Kharkiv region announced that one civilian had been killed and another injured during attacks carried out the day before on the northeastern region. “The bombings killed a 62-year-old woman who worked in a boiler room. A 63-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman, who were injured, were hospitalized with moderate injuries,” he said.
Russian forces seized swaths of the Kharkiv region by force at the start of the invasion launched by Moscow in February 2022, but they were repelled a few months later by Ukrainian troops. The region is still subject to intense bombardment.
Launch Thursday in Paris of an “artillery coalition” for Ukraine
The French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu is due to launch an “artillery coalition” in Paris on Thursday aimed at strengthening kyiv’s capabilities against Russia, a ceremony which his Ukrainian counterpart will attend by videoconference. This coalition, led by France and the United States, is one of the components of the contact group for the defense of Ukraine known as the Ramstein group, bringing together more than 50 countries supporting kyiv.
This workshop in which 23 nations are participating “aims to unite efforts to help — in the short and long term — Ukraine to have an artillery force adapted to the needs of the counter-offensive and its army of tomorrow,” said the French Ministry of the Armed Forces.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Roustem Oumerov, long announced to be present, canceled his visit to France at the last moment “for security reasons”, Paris announced on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. “The big challenge for Ukraine is to complete its transition from Soviet equipment to Western equipment,” said international risk consultant Stéphane Audrand. Soviet-era guns are fitted with 122mm shells, while Western systems use 155mm shells.
To arm the cannons, the European Union has set itself the objective of supplying Ukraine with one million munitions by spring 2024. But only 300,000 shells have been delivered to date, according to European parliamentarians. The French Ministry of the Armed Forces, for its part, welcomed on Wednesday a tripling of ammunition production capacities in France, from 1,000 units produced per month before the war in Ukraine to 3,000 hoped for in 2024. These quantities, however, are only sufficient for a few days of fighting on the Ukrainian side, experts note.
“Thanks to the efforts of the war economy, France has the capacity to produce in 2024 and early 2025 78 Caesar arrows for Ukraine,” the ministry also said. Six of them, paid for by kyiv, will be delivered “in the coming weeks”, the other 72 will have to find collective financing, from the same source. In December, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense declared that it was “very important for Ukraine to strengthen its firepower through the supply of artillery systems from the allies”, specifying that it was interested in the acquisition of more Caesar.
Frozen forehead
France has already ceded or sold 30 Caesars to Ukraine. Denmark also supplied Ukraine with 19 examples of an eight-wheeled armored version. Mounted on a truck, the Caesar can fire 155mm shells up to 40 kilometers away. French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated on Tuesday his support for kyiv, whose military counter-offensive has not produced the expected results. He also announced that he would visit Ukraine in February, for the second time since the start of the war in February 2022.
France is “in the process of finalizing a security agreement” with kyiv of the type that concluded on Friday between the United Kingdom and Ukraine over ten years, he added. On Saturday, during his first visit to Ukraine, the new French Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Séjourné raised the possibility of “strengthening the Ukrainian capacity to produce on its soil” the weapons it needs.
Almost two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the front has been virtually frozen for many months. The French head of state also announced new deliveries to Kiev of around “forty” Scalp (long-range) missiles and “several hundred bombs” (AASM according to a source close to the matter), “so as not to let Russia win. Ukraine, targeted almost every night by drones and missiles launched by Moscow, also needs to strengthen its anti-aircraft defense.