APU received the first armored vehicles from France. light tank model AMX-10 RC, with which Paris wants to increase the combat effectiveness of its ally in the face of a military offensive launched more than a year ago by Russian troops.

These first armored vehicles “have just arrived in Ukraine,” Defense Minister Sebastian Lecornu told the National Assembly. “Some have already gone to the front“He added without going into details about the number of cars,” the paper said. Le Figaro.

The French government promised the delivery of these cars in early January, and in mid-February even suggested that shipment was already inevitable. However, Paris avoided including Leclerc tanks in said aid, more powerful, claiming that it doesn’t have many employees – it would have about 200 operatives – and it doesn’t have the capacity to produce new cars.

French arms exports on the rise

This is stated in the report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). French arms exports up 44 percent between 2013-17 to 2018-2022, most of them to Asia, Oceania and the Middle East. Thus, France supplanted the US the second largest supplier of weapons to India after Russia.