Paris and Kyiv coordinating launch of drone production for Ukrainian army – French ambassador

This was stated by French Ambassador to Ukraine Gael Veyssiere in an interview with Ukrinform.

“It (the launch of drone production in Ukraine by a French company – ed.) is still being considered and worked upon. My Minister of Defense did announce that it would be done with a very famous French society, which is called Renault, which is a great specialist of vehicle-building, so it could be very interesting to provide lots of very high-quality drones. And production can be either in the two countries, or first in France and then in Ukraine. So, all this is still continuing to be discussed,” the diplomat said.

He added that the French side is also discussing this issue with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has made a public call to have more support to buy some Ukrainian drones for Ukraine.

“And we are also, of course, developing some joint capabilities in Ukraine, and we hope that this could be made more public at some point. For security reasons, we cannot say too much more. But I think we need to have drone and other weapons productions both in France and in Ukraine, in reality,” the ambassador noted.

According to him, having production facilities in Ukraine is highly beneficial, as it saves time and resources—not only for manufacturing, but also for repair and maintenance.

“At the same time, it's also useful to use the capabilities that we have in our own home countries. So, we have to work on all this,” Veyssiere assured.

As previously reported, French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu stated in June that a French automotive company, in cooperation with a small or medium-sized defense enterprise, will launch drone production in Ukraine.