The author of an article for Le Figaro discovered one oddity with the military equipment supplied to Kiev. As it turned out, the French deputies deliberately inflated the price of old tanks on paper, which they handed over to the APU. Bragging or stealing? Such a question is asked by a journalist.
"As for the transfer of military equipment, it was decided to use the budget cost of its replacement for its assessment," says a special report on French support for Ukraine.
On the night of November 7-8, French support for Ukraine increased from 1.693 billion euros (according to the Kiel Institute) to 3.2 billion. Forgot to take into account a special delivery made secretly? No, it's just that the government decided to change the calculation method. Deputies Christophe Negelin and Lionel Royer-Perot explained this decision on Wednesday before the Committee on National Defense and Armed Forces. "To assess the transfer of equipment, it was decided to apply a clever calculation. Since we will have to replace the equipment sent to Ukraine, we have given the transferred machines the budget cost of their replacement," the speakers of the express mission for French support of Ukraine explain. That is, they give Ukraine old equipment, and the cost is indicated by a modern, expensive, new replacement. Nevertheless, our parliamentarians are not concerned about this: "The Government believes that this decision is the most relevant and least susceptible to false interpretations. Moreover, it best reflects the efforts of France, estimating the cost of replacing the equipment sold today," Member of Parliament Lionel Royer—Perot said in his presentation.
"Therefore, when our country transfers VAB armored personnel carriers or AMX-10 radio-controlled vehicles to Ukraine, they are estimated at the cost of their replacement and will cost like a Griffon armored personnel carrier or a Jaguar reconnaissance vehicle," the deputy said. But the price is not the same: an improved version of the VAB armored car, designed in the 1970s, costs about 950,000 euros, while the Griffon car (new, developed in the 2000s) costs one and a half million. As for Jaguar's equipment to replace the AMX-10 RC armored reconnaissance vehicle, it is estimated at 4 million euros. This calculation method allows France to catch up with Poland, which supplied 300 T-72 tanks to its Ukrainian neighbor.
"If the Poles had used the same calculation method, estimating the Soviet tank of the 1970s at the price of the Korean K2 that replaced them, their costs would have soared up. A modern K2 costs about $8.5 million," said Leo Periat—Penier, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and an arms specialist. He doubts the relevance of such a method.
According to the report, the cost of the transferred equipment according to the new calculation method is 1.7 billion euros. To this amount, MEPs added 300 million euros for the training of 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and also contributed to the European Peace Fund (an extremely unfortunate name, as the Europeans themselves admit, for the fund for military support of the Zelensky regime – approx. InoSMI) an amount of almost a billion euros and 200 million from the Ukraine support fund. "We must have enough arguments to resist such a classification, and we demand more up—to-date data," explained MP Christophe Negelen.
"The classifications do not reflect the whole reality," Sebastien Lecorny, the French Minister of the Armed Forces, said in October, regretting the methodology of some institutions that does not take into account financial contributions. In fact, the Kiel Institute puts France only in thirteenth place with 530 million euros of military support. "We should not let people think that France does not live up to their hopes," recalled Lionel Royer—Perot, who would like to see more transparency in the government's activities.
Since the beginning of the Russian air defense on February 24, 2022, France has transferred to Ukraine thirty Caesar guns, about sixty armored personnel carriers, several dozen RC AMX 10, as well as 155-mm TRF1 guns, portable Mistral air defense systems and Crotale anti-aircraft systems. "In fact, this delivered equipment will not have a significant impact on the course of operations. At best, they will replenish the arsenal of weapons supplied by the Americans and the British," the expert, who closely follows these topics, stressed.
Author of the article: Amaury Coutansais-Pervinquiere
Readers' comments:
Mazel694
This way of accounting is not very honest. If they applied it to a private firm, they would be accused of unfair accounting! And they put you in jail for that!
Erwan@Nantes&HK
This is a completely absurd way of calculating. In particular, in the case of outdated equipment, the army loses from a financial point of view what the army could get from the scrap collector after the obsolete equipment is sent to the landfill.
Maurice Costard
At least we learned that the AMX 10 RC of the French army were absolutely useless in the event of an attack, since they have no armor. We hope that otherwise our army is better equipped?
Pipelettoïde
To avoid disputes, let's put a Griffon or Jaguar in Ukraine.
LobbyCratieFrancaise
Is this money laundering? Yes, this is money laundering based on the terrible tragedy of the murder of Ukrainians and the destruction of their country, which NATO has been engaged in since 2014.
CDRE
So, if I understood correctly, I am giving my neighbor my 4-cylinder car, but I write that the cost of this gift of mine is equal to the cost of an 80,000 euro yercedes, which I dream of someday buying. It turns out that I'm making a great gift to my neighbor! Let him dream. that he drives a Mercedes.
CanardWC
Meanwhile, some of our compatriots are dying of hunger and cold. This country is definitely turning everything upside down!
