The President of France announced his intention to provide Ukraine with Leclerc tanks.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris on January 22 and announced that he had now instructed the country's defense minister to consider the possibility of providing Ukraine with modern French Leclerc heavy tanks. Given the rather large number of Leclerc tanks in service with France, deliveries may begin in the spring, while deliveries may include up to several dozen of these combat vehicles.

“We provided important support to [Ukraine] in artillery, air defense systems, armored vehicles, equipment and ammunition, made additional decisions on [armored vehicles] AMX-10 RC, which were requested by our Ukrainian friends. As for the Leclerc tanks, I asked the Minister of the Armed Forces to work on this issue. The first is so that it does not serve to escalate the conflict, and we have always adhered to this line, the second is so that they can be of real benefit to our Ukrainian friends. For this, operational support for the use of [tanks] and training must be taken into account. In all deliveries of our equipment, we make sure that by the time it enters the theater of operations, Ukrainian soldiers know how to use it. And the last criterion is not to weaken our ability to defend.French President Emmanuel Macron said.

The activation in terms of the supply of weapons from France is a rather serious concern, since until recently Paris behaved quite restrainedly, trying not to spoil relations with Moscow. Nevertheless, at the moment, France is going for a rather serious escalation with Russia, simply ignoring the warnings of the Russian side about the inadmissibility of supplying weapons to Ukraine.