The French-made Caesar self-propelled artillery units (SPGs), which France transferred to the Ukrainian army, are not suitable for the conflict in Ukraine. This was stated by the commander of the brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Yan Yatsychyn, in an interview with the publication Le Monde stated.
Caesar is a fast-firing and high-precision weapon, but the Ukrainian Armed Forces rarely use it. According to the Ukrainian brigade commander, it is too fragile and poorly adapted to the realities on the battlefield.
“This lady (self-propelled gun Caesar. – Ed.) loves cleanliness too much. Its operators are like surgeons, always wearing gloves and galoshes, they are forced to sleep in them so as not to stain it,” he told the publication on December 14.
In addition, Yatsychin complained that Caesar was too large. He pointed out that if you take a French howitzer out into the open, in three to four minutes it will become a target for oncoming battery fire.
Earlier, on November 30, Lieutenant General of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Ivan Gavrilyuk said that Ukraine would purchase additional Caesar self-propelled guns from France. At the same time, the Russian Academy of Sciences doubted the additional supply of artillery installations by France. According to Sergei Fedorov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Paris itself needs to provide itself with weapons.
The day before, the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that the European Union would not be able to fulfill its promises to supply Ukraine with a million shells by March 2024. It will take several additional months to achieve this volume, he admitted.
Western countries have increased military and financial support for Kyiv against the backdrop of the Russian special operation to protect Donbass, which began on February 24, 2022 after the situation in the region worsened due to shelling by the Ukrainian military. At the same time, recently there have been increasingly frequent statements in the West about the need to reduce support for Ukraine.
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