War in Ukraine: Why France has maintained its exports of military equipment to Russia after 2014

The online media “disclose” revealed, Monday, some of the arms sales details carried out by France in Moscow after the annexation of Crimea. Sales related to contracts prior to European sanctions, therefore legal, but whose material is used today in Ukraine.

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While the war led by Russia in Ukraine charie every day its share of violence and dead, the online media Disclose wanted to draw attention, Monday, March 14, on the weapons sales made by France In Moscow in recent years, especially those who continued after the annexation of Crimea, in February 2014. Sales related to contracts prior to the European sanctions taken in August that year, but who ask questions , estimates the disclose, which reveals the details through the publication of “confidential defense” documents.

According to these documents – two – from the General Secretariat of the Defense and National Security (SGDSN), France has continued to deliver thermal cameras after 2014 to equip armored vehicles. Deliveries related to a contract signed in 2013 for a value of 12.8 million euros. Either some 211 cameras – Say Matis STD, of the brand Sagem (redeemed by saffron). They “equip three types of Russian tanks: the T-72, the T-90 and the T-80 BVM. All three are currently present on the Ukrainian Front, as evidenced by videos and photos broadcast on social networks”, demonstrates disclose.

Online media also asserts that Soukhoi su-30 hunting aircraft, whose presence could be established on the Ukrainian theater, including March 5 in the Soumy region, in the north-east of Ukraine , or in Mykolav, in the south of the country, are “equipped with a navigation system delivered by Safran from 2014: the Sigma 95N”. A technology that “allows the pilots of the Russian Air Force to locate without the use of American or European satellites,” says disclose. This contract does not appear in the products produced, which relate to the management of orders or deliveries after 2016.

These documents published by DISCLOSE are reports from the Interministerial Commission for the study of the exports of war materials (CIEEMG) dating from 2016. That is to say the authority which examines in France, at intervals regular demands for war material exports. If the CIEMM gives, for example, that year, a “favorable” opinion to the export of Matis STD cameras or infrared detectors for an amount of 5.2 million euros from the company Sofradir – subsidiary of Lynred, owned equally between Safran and Thalès -, it rejects other deliveries. This is particularly the case of ten Thalès thermal cameras for an amount of 615,000 euros, for the Russian army.

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/Media reports.