France, Greece and Cyprus have opposed the initiative to purchase artillery shells for Ukraine outside the industrial sector of the European Union. The Politico newspaper quoted its sources as saying.
According to Politico, at a meeting of the Political and Security Committee, most EU countries were in favour of allowing European money to be used to buy shells made outside the EU. However, Cyprus, Greece and France opposed the decision.
The newspaper noted that the reason for France’s rejection of this initiative is the desire to ensure that European arms manufacturers receive orders. This is how they intend to justify increasing their production.
Moreover, a senior French official told Politico last month that Paris would not oppose such purchases if the EU failed to deliver the promised one million shells to Ukraine by March. However, Brussels has already officially announced that the initiative had failed, and the French rejected the idea anyway.
We shall remind you that earlier, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada committee for national security, defence and intelligence, Yegor Chernev, said in an interview with the New York Times that there is a growing fear in Ukraine that the army will soon start losing control over populated areas if Washington delays the allocation of new military aid to the Ukrainian government.
