Var: videos show the training of Ukrainian soldiers aboard French light combat tanks
For discretion, you will have to come back. While the Ministry of the Armed Forces had decided to remain as vague as possible about any presence of Ukrainian soldiers on French soil, it was ultimately the latter who revealed their location. Indeed, while the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu had announced to the Parisian ” a training plan to accommodate up to 2,000 soldiers Ukrainians in France”, images of members of the kyiv army in France have just leaked on social networks.
Revealed by Ukrainian accounts of followers of the conflict, these videos bring together nearly three minutes of a montage of images of soldiers of Volodymyr Zelensky, in particular aboard light combat tanks, AMX-10 RC (cannon wheel) of French manufacture. This montage was made with the InShot application.
On a background of metal music, the soldiers who are in exercise and training alongside the French forces, film themselves with a certain pride (by making the V of victory with their fingers), evolving in the middle of desert landscape, hilly and dusty . They can also be distinguished in what looks like a military barracks.
Thanks to inscriptions on the buildings, spotted by former French soldiers, some experts have affirmed that it was the Canjuers camp in the Var. Information that we are able to confirm according to a source close to the file. Largest camp in Western Europe, the military complex of Canjuers is “essential for the operational preparation of the French forces” and extends its 35,000 ha on the high plateaus of northern Var, according to the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
Formation and tanks that could be decisive on the front
If it is difficult to date these images, they would have been captured very recently. “In any case, in recent weeks, since the announcement of the President of the Republic”, continues this person informed of the file. Emmanuel Macron had indeed announced on January 4 the future delivery of these light armored tanks of 25 tons, evolving on wheels, and equipped with a gun of 105 mm. A decisive announcement at that time of the war in Ukraine, since supplanted by announcements of heavy armor for kyiv from many Western countries… Except France.
It is not yet known whether these soldiers, whose numbers remain well hidden, are already operational, but they could reach “Ukraine with these tanks in the coming days or weeks”. If not already. Meanwhile, some 55 Ukrainian soldiers are completing month-long training in Spain this week to use Leopard 2 tanks that some Western allies have delivered or promised to Ukraine, Madrid said on Monday.
Arrived in mid-February in Spain, these Ukrainian soldiers must leave for Poland on Wednesday, before joining Ukraine and the front, said a Spanish government source. They were trained 12 hours a day and six days a week at the San Gregorio military base in the city of Zaragoza, northeast Spain, Spanish captain Contreras said.
Other Western countries such as Poland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Canada delivered or promised Leopard tanks to Ukraine to counter the Russian invasion. Dozens of tanks and thousands of new trained soldiers who could be decisive in kyiv’s plan for a new counter-offensive.
