BUndecancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and French President Emmanuel Macron phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. According to government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, they urged an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops. In the 80-minute conversation, they called on Putin to engage in serious direct negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The subject of the call was also the tense situation on the global food market. Putin is said to have said that the “flawed economic and financial policies of Western countries” and “anti-Russian sanctions” are responsible for the problems. The federal government always points out that there are no sanctions against food. Ukraine also disagreed that punitive measures against Moscow were the reason. Putin is said to have repeated his offer to allow grain exports from Ukraine, while assuring that Russia would not use the opening of Ukraine’s protection belt for attacks. At the same time, Putin called for the lifting of sanctions against his country.
The Russian President warned Germany and France against further arms deliveries. Putin is said to have said that this harbored the risk of further destabilizing the situation and worsening the humanitarian crisis. In Paris, this warning was interpreted as a consequence of the recent deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukraine. As reported by the Ukrainian General Staff on Saturday, French artillery pieces CAESAR are already on the battlefield. “Two tanks, two armored vehicles and a truck with ammunition from the Russian war criminals” have already been destroyed thanks to the howitzers. The Ukrainian Defense Minister thanked France for the help.
Dispute in Italy’s coalition
President Emmanuel Macron announced the CAESAR delivery on April 22nd. However, the adaptation of the French model to the needs of the Ukrainian army and the training of Ukrainian soldiers at the Canjuers military base in southern France probably began before the official announcement. This was indicated by the director general of the French armaments authority Direction Générale d’Armement (DGA), Joel Barre, at a hearing before the Senate.
The truck-mounted 155 mm howitzers were therefore taken from the stocks of the French army and not from a planned delivery to a foreign customer, as the press had previously said. More details can be found in the minutes of the hearing, which were released over the weekend. Barre reported to the senators that the French armaments company Nexter had adapted the command system of the CAESAR guns for the Ukrainian army. President Macron had already spoken to Zelenskyy about this possibility in March. After the six CAESAR guns that have already been delivered, more are to follow; According to the announcement, “ten to twelve” are planned. The French army still has 70 CAESAR guns.
Meanwhile, in Italy, Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s coalition is increasingly burdened by the dispute over Ukraine policy. Former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, chairman of the right-wing national Lega, has announced a trip to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days. To do something for peace, he would “even walk” to Moscow, said Salvini, whose party is nominally the second strongest force in the coalition.
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