Lithuania will sign a memorandum of understanding to acquire French Caesar self-propelled guns on the sidelines of a meeting between the two countries’ defense ministers on Monday at the Eurosatory defense fair, the two countries announced.
New French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu “today meets his Lithuanian counterpart Arvydas Anusauskas on the occasion of the opening of the Eurosatory exhibition”, north of Paris, according to the ministry.
“We will talk about capacity building of the armed forces. I will also sign the first letter of intent to buy French 155mm Caesar howitzers for Lithuania,” his Lithuanian counterpart said on Twitter.
The number of self-propelled guns that Vilnius intends to acquire is not specified.
That decision comes as the Baltic country, a member of the EU and NATO, decided to increase its defense budget for 2022 by 300 million euros to 1.5 billion euros amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine and fears of its own Security.
According to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, “the ties that unite Lithuania and France in terms of defense are very solid and will be further strengthened in the coming weeks in the deteriorated geopolitical context that we are witnessing in Europe”.
The conflict in Ukraine is reminiscent of the role of artillery in high-intensity conflicts, with the West, mainly the United States, supplying dozens of guns to Ukrainian forces to stem Russian advances.
In this regard, at the end of April, France delivered 6 Caesar guns to Kyiv, as well as thousands of shells.
Manufactured by Nexter, the Caesar is a truck-mounted 155mm cannon capable of firing six rounds per minute at a range of 40 kilometers.
France has 76 copies. The system has also been sold almost 300 times in seven countries (Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Indonesia, Thailand, Czech Republic, Morocco and Belgium).