The Ministry of Defense wants to create a service and repair center for French military equipment in Ukraine to speed up its restoration cycle and get more Caesar howitzers.

The French publication Le Figaro reported this.

Such intentions were discussed on December 28 during the meeting of the Ukrainian delegation with Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces of France, in Kyiv.

However, the French military does not seem ready to transfer new howitzers from its stocks. That is why Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defense of Ukraine, called on the French counterparts to speed up the production pace so that deliveries would take place as early as 2023.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military is concerned about the condition of the French howitzers: they are badly worn down due to extremely high fire rates.

“Some of the damage to the Caesar self-propelled howitzers is getting serious,” Sébastien Lecornu admits.

It is reported that one of the eighteen delivered Caesar self-propelled howitzers is completely out of order. Most likely, it is a howitzer hit by a Russian drone a month ago.

Other self-propelled howitzers left the front line for maintenance. Some vehicles have a broken undercarriage. Numerous elements of the howitzers need to be replaced. Barrels will also soon have to be replaced due to wear off.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine wants to provide local service to prevent delivering Caesar to Poland. Currently, transportation is time-consuming and puts the howitzers at risk.

“We have three levels of service,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov explains.

They include basic repairs on the battlefield that Ukrainian companies can provide, so-called repairs of “medium complexity”, and those that require the equipment to be transferred abroad.

Therefore, now the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine wants to deepen cooperation with French companies to facilitate repairs in Ukraine.

At the same time, according to Le Figaro journalists, the Ukrainian organization is considered too difficult and slow in Paris. France has set up a €200 million support fund to order parts directly from manufacturers. Three procurement centers are responsible for placing orders. For several months now, Paris has been offering the Ukrainian side to order spare parts through this mechanism without wasting time.