this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024

218 points (100.0% liked)

World News

38691 readers

2791 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

quinten@lemmy.world

NewsAutoMod@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

lemmyAtom@lemmy.world

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world

218

France ramps up weapons production for Ukraine and says Russia is scrutinizing the West's mettle (apnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

French manufacturers have reduced the manufacturing times for some of the weapons systems they supply to Ukraine by half or more, as France increasingly switches away from its previous policy of dipping into its own military stocks to support the war effort against Russia’s invasion, France’s defense minister said in an interview published Thursday.

“The logic of ceding materiel taken from the armies’ stocks is reaching its end,” the minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in the interview with Le Parisien. “From now on, the solution is to directly connect French defense industries with the Ukrainian army.”

He cited the Caesar self-propelled 155 mm howitzer, made in France by Nexter, as an example of how French defense contractors are adopting a war footing. Caesars are among an array of Western-supplied artillery systems that have given Ukrainian gun crews an edge, especially when paired with high-precision munitions, against Russian artillery batteries using older Soviet-designed systems.

top 8 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 7 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

PARIS (AP) — French manufacturers have reduced the manufacturing times for some of the weapons systems they supply to Ukraine by half or more, as France increasingly switches away from its previous policy of dipping into its own military stocks to support the war effort against Russia’s invasion, France’s defense minister said in an interview published Thursday.

“The logic of ceding materiel taken from the armies’ stocks is reaching its end,” the minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in the interview with Le Parisien.

He cited the Caesar self-propelled 155 mm howitzer, made in France by Nexter, as an example of how French defense contractors are adopting a war footing.

France will also help finance Caesar deliveries and hopes other backers of Ukraine will also provide funding, he added.

Following Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine, France was among countries that quickly released weapons from its own armories to help shore up Ukrainian defenses.

As well as Caesars, France has supplied light tanks, long-range cruise missiles, air defense systems and other hardware, support and military training.

The original article contains 506 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[+] TWeaK@lemm.ee -13 points 8 months ago (4 children)

“From now on, the solution is to directly connect French defense industries with the Ukrainian army.”

Sure, but who's paying for this? Will Ukraine now be buying directly from the industry (presumably on credit), or will the French taxpayer continue to pay with the vague hope that Ukraine might some day pay it back?

I'm fully in support of Ukraine, but it bothers me that no one talks about how the vast majority of aid sent to them is under bilateral aid agreements. As the name suggests, it's a two way deal, and because the recipient of bilateral aid is always desperate the terms heavily favour the giving country. Either Ukraine won't survive the war, and thus won't pay it back, or it will but will be financially crippled.

Furthermore, I worry that governments are using these loans to balance their long term financial forecasts, making them seem a lot better than they really are.

[–] Whelks_chance@lemmy.world 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but these are loans owed by a country to another country, so as long as the terms aren't too crippling, I personally see this as better than the alternative.

For example, the UK only paid off it's WW2 loans in 2006

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6215847.stm

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

My issue is not about the loans though, it's about politicians fluffing up the financial health of their country to justify pilfering the tax coffers for themselves.

I'm aware that the UK paid off the US for WW2. However the UK's economy is vastly different to Ukraine's, both present and historically. The comparison is not reasonable.

Again though, I don't want aid to stop - I want more of it. I just want it done above board.

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if the Ukrainian people would rather pay off loans or have their children stolen by Putin.

It’s a mystery for the ages.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Sure, and as I say I'm fully in support of Ukraine. I don't want the support to stop - in fact I want more of it.

However, that doesn't mean the people of the countries that are giving should just ignore how it's being done, and what it might mean for the true financial health of their own country. It's no good if politicians are fiddling the books and using it to justify padding their pockets with taxpayer money.

[–] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

Imagine if Hitlers one week special operation in Poland hadn't been a success.

[–] Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net 4 points 8 months ago

At this point I think everyone is waiting to see how the war turns out. Nobody's getting paid if they lose