New perspectives in funding

To date, France has provided Ukraine with military aid worth more than 3.2 billion euros ($3.51 billion), including 30 Caesar self-propelled guns, light tanks, armored personnel carriers, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as several dozen Storm Shadow long-range missiles and other weapons.

However, speaking on France Info radio recently, French Ambassador to Kiev Gael Veyssiere said that President Emmanuel Macron's government intends to continue its strategy of supporting Ukraine, but Paris intends to promote Ukraine's military industry, instead of continuing to send equipment to this Eastern European country through donations or purchases.

Accordingly, 2024 will be “the year when arms production in Ukraine must increase and when Ukraine must increasingly rely on its own resources, produced on its own territory.” The French ambassador’s statement is said to be similar to the stance adopted by Washington in recent months, when the US and its allies have exhausted the arsenals they can send to Ukraine. According to Politico, the Washington administration intends to restore Ukraine’s military-industrial complex as soon as possible so that Kiev can produce the necessary weapons itself.

Meanwhile, on January 4, Lieutenant General Sergiy Nayev, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, commander of mobile air defense units in Kiev and the Northern Ukraine region, said that the country's mobile air defense forces only have enough ammunition to withstand a few more major attacks.

The development comes as Ukraine’s Finance Ministry recently released figures showing that the country’s annual budget deficit will reach 1.33 trillion hryvnia ($35 billion) in 2023, up 46% from the previous year. Ukraine has been heavily dependent on economic support from the West and faces uncertainty about funding in 2024.

The government expects a budget deficit of about $43 billion in 2024 and plans to cover it with domestic borrowing and financial aid from Western partners.

KHANH HUNG

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