Sébastien Lecornu, French Minister of Defense, announced that the country will conduct training for 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers and confirmed the transfer of SAMs to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

He mentioned this in his interview with Le Parisien.

Lecornu emphasized that the French military had already trained Ukrainian gunners when the Caesar self-propelled howitzers were first handed over, however, the announced training would be on a completely different scale.

“This is a very important step, a response to one of the main requests from the Ukrainians. They (Ukrainian military, – ed.) will be assigned to our units for several weeks. The artillery crews for Caesar were already created in France, but with this, we are changing the scale,” the minister said.

The Head of the French Ministry of Defense also pointed out that the training will consist of three levels.

The first would be general training. The second stage would tackle the needs reported by the Ukrainian side, and the third would cover the training with the provided equipment.

Sébastien Lecornu emphasized that France will continue providing Ukraine with the necessary weapons, and specified that this regards the Crotale air defense system.

“The priority is unequivocally ground-to-air defense. We are going to provide, as announced by the President of the Republic, reliable Crotale air defense systems. They will be especially useful in the fight against drones and air attacks,” the minister said.

Also, France is considering sending 6 to 12 Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, canceling their supply to Denmark.

Lecornu added that Ukraine has formed a request for multiple launch rocket systems that will allow striking at a long distance. He did not specify what kind of weapon this regarded. He emphasized that this request is being considered in Paris.

The Crotale is a French all-weather, short-range, surface-to-air missile system developed by Thomson CSF Matra. It is designed to combat air targets in the range of medium, low, and extremely low altitudes. It is adopted in service by France, Finland, Greece, and the Netherlands.

The Crotale air defense system exists in two basing options: mobile land-based and naval-based. The operation range is between 500 and 10000 m, at altitudes – up to 6000 m.

As previously reported, Canada will send another 40 servicemen to Poland to train the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.