War in Ukraine: new deliveries of armored vehicles, appeal from Pope Francis… update on the situation

La France va livrer “des centaines” de blindés à l’Ukraine. ILLUSTRATION MAXPPP

Tous les jours, Midi Libre fait le point sur la situation en Ukraine. Ce dimanche 31 mars 2024, découvrez les dernières actualités autour de ce conflit.

France will deliver hundreds of old armored vehicles and Aster anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missiles to Ukraine as part of a new aid package for Kyiv in its war against Russia, declared the French Minister of Defense, Sébastien Lecornu.

"To hold such a large front line, the Ukrainian army needs, for example, our armored front vehicles ( VAB): it’is absolutely key for the mobility of troops", explained the minister during an interview with La Tribune Dimanche. "This old equipment, still operational, will be able to directly benefit Ukraine in significant quantities. We can talk about hundreds of them for 2024 and early 2025", he added.

Sébastien Lecornu further declared that he would "unlock a new batch of Aster 30 missiles"for the SAMP/T device (medium range/terrestrial ground-air system) supplied to Ukraine. The minister also indicated that he was asking the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) to make proposals to accelerate the production of the Aster missile, manufactured by the European group MBDA.

Exchange of all prisoners

Pope Francis renewed on Easter Sunday his calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all Israeli hostages, in a speech focused on peace .

He also mentioned Ukraine, Syria, Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Haiti, Burma, Sudan, the Sahel and Horn of Africa, Congo and Mozambique.

After asking Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi last year to mediate the repatriation of Ukrainian children from Russia and territories occupied by Moscow, Francis called for "an exchange general of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine".

Decree on spring military conscription

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing the routine spring conscription campaign, calling 150,000 citizens into compulsory military service, according to a document published on the Kremlin website on Sunday.

Mandatory military service has long been a sensitive subject in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being issued conscription papers during call-up periods, which have held twice a year.

Conscripts cannot be legally deployed to fight outside Russia and have been exempt from a limited mobilization in 2022, which brought together at least 300,000 trained troops military advance to fight in Ukraine – although some conscripts were sent to the front by mistake.

In September, Vladimir Putin signed an order to mobilize 130,000 people for the fall campaign, and last spring Russia planned to call up 147 people for the fall campaign. nbsp;000