French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced that France will use interest from frozen Russian assets to fund an additional €195 million ($211 million) in arms for Ukraine.
“France also plans to hand over some of its older armored fighting vehicles, such as the AMX-10RC and personnel carriers,” Lecornu told the La Tribune weekend newspaper.
He said that, thanks to interest from frozen Russian assets, “we will also tap into new funds worth €195 million,” adding that these funds would be used for 155-mm artillery shells and glide bombs for the Mirage 2000 fighter jets that France has provided to Ukraine.
European countries are scrambling to scale up assistance to Ukraine after Washington said it was cutting military aid to and intelligence sharing with Kyiv following an angry spat between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the White House on February 28.
The Group of Seven (G7) powers agreed last year to provide Ukraine with $50 billion through a series of bilateral loans that Kyiv could repay using windfall profits from $300 billion in frozen Russian state assets.
Earlier, the French Finance Minister said he opposed the allocation of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, saying that these assets belong to the Russian Central Bank and that their allocation to Ukraine is contrary to international law and the agreements that Europe has signed.
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