France plans to produce a dozen self-propelled Caesar howitzers in the coming months for Ukraine, the French defense minister said Tuesday.
"The Caesar howitzer became the symbol of the artillery coalition," Sebastien Lecornu told reporters in a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Paris.
He said six howitzers were currently being produced monthly, and added: "To give this number that was never said publicly ... we will again increase production up to 12 howitzers per month in the future."
- Ukraine 'more united than ever before'
For his part, Blinken underlined that Europe was no longer dependent on Russian energy and said Ukraine was "more united than ever before."
"Ukraine is more united than ever before. Europe has taken itself off of a dependence on Russian energy," he said, hailing Ukraine's resistance against Russia.
He stressed that a supplementary budget request made by US President Joe Biden to Congress "must be fulfilled as quickly as possible."
