The new French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, assured this Saturday in Kiev in his first official trip after his appointment last Thursday, that his country is determined to strengthen Ukraine’s capacity to manufacture weapons on its own territory, in addition to continuing supplying him with weapons.
“We are determined to jointly strengthen Ukraine’s ability to produce weapons on its own territory and we are ready to help them in this area,” he declared during a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitro Kuleba, quoted by Ukrainian media.
Séjourné stated that “France will remain by Ukraine’s side for as long as necessary” and added that “this determination has not changed” and will translate into all areas of support for the Ukrainian armed forces, such as the supply of weapons systems, ammunition, anti-aircraft defense means and artillery.
The minister also recalled the visit to Ukraine of the French Defense Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, with French companies in the sector, and indicated that efforts will continue to improve the legal framework “so that this cooperation can develop even better.”
“We appreciate France’s full support for Ukraine, in particular the reinforcement of our air defense. Today we talked about additional deliveries of systems and missiles to protect the Ukrainian sky, as well as the supply of drones to Ukraine,” said Kuleba, for his part. part.
The Ukrainian minister also alluded to today’s Russian bombing to underline that “many Western-made components have already been repeatedly found in Russian missiles flying over the heads of Ukrainians.”
In this sense, he called on the G7 and European Union (EU) countries to “listen once and for all to Ukraine and take decisive measures” to cut off the supply to Russia of products containing military components.
“Russia uses washing machines, microwaves and other appliances, not to wash and eat, but to extract different parts from them in order to incorporate them into their missiles and kill Ukrainians,” he declared.
In this sense, he referred to a recent report by the Kiev School of Economics and the Yermak-McFaul Group, according to which 44% of all electronic components in Russian weapons have been developed by Western companies.
On the other hand, Kuleba pointed out that with Séjourné they had coordinated their positions ahead of the NATO summit in Washington and the steps to follow to begin Ukraine’s accession negotiations with the EU.
“We agreed that France will support not only the integration of Ukraine into the EU, but also the fulfillment of specific deadlines on this path,” he stressed.
Kuleba and Séjourné also addressed other issues with frozen Russian assets and the creation of a special court for crimes of Russian aggression.
The Ukrainian minister stressed that the fact that the first visit of the new French Foreign Minister was to kyiv “is proof of the important place that Ukraine occupies in the priorities of French policy.”
