France, Germany authorize tank manufacturer KNDS to set up unit in Ukraine

BRUSSELS. March 22 (Interfax) - Paris and Berlin have reached an agreement which would authorize the French-German company KNDS, a manufacturer of tanks and other equipment, to establish a production unit in Ukraine, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said.

"We are announcing that KNDS [...] a German-French company will take a foothold in Ukraine with a local unit," Western media quoted Lecornu as saying following negotiations with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

The facility is supposed to manufacture spare parts and train local personnel.

Speaking in early March, Lecornu said three French defense companies, including KNDS, were planning to launch operations in Ukraine this summer.

French President Emmanuel Macron said at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in mid-March that French and German companies would work together with Kiev to speed up the manufacture of weapons on Ukrainian territory.

Macron and Scholz met in Berlin last week in an effort to narrow differences on Ukraine, which began to grow at the end of February after Macron stated that the West should not rule out a situation in which it would have to send troops to fight in Ukraine. Scholz, as well as leaders in the United States and numerous other countries, objected to Macron's statement, pointing out that NATO has agreed from the very start of the Ukraine conflict not to deploy troops to the country.