An "artillery coalition" for Ukraine is being launched in France on January 18 by 23 nations as the war-wracked country struggles to ensure continued deliveries of heavy weapons and ammunition to stave off Russia's nearly two-year all-out invasion.
The U.S.- and France-led initiative is part of the Ramstein Contact Group of more than 50 allies of Ukraine.
Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who is to launch the "artillery coalition' at a ceremony in Paris, said ahead of the gathering that France will produce and deliver to Ukraine 78 truck-mounted Caesar howitzers by early next year to beef up Kyiv's artillery capability in the face of Russia's ongoing all-out invasion.
Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper, Lecornu said the first six Caesars, the flagship gun of French artillery that can strike targets at a distance of more than 40 kilometers, will be delivered in the following weeks.
Ukraine received a first batch of Caesars in May 2022 and has been using them on the front line since.
Ukraine was to be represented at the ceremony by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, but his ministry said in a statement on Telegram that he won't be able to travel to Paris as announced due to a meeting with Ukraine's military commanders. He will attend via video link, the ministry said.
Earlier, the French government said Umerov had canceled the trip the last moment due to unspecified "security reasons."
The launching of the artillery coalition comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris will deliver to Ukraine a fresh batch of about 40 long-range SCALP cruise missiles, as well as "several hundred" bombs.
Macron also announced that next month he will visit Kyiv where he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are to sign a bilateral agreement on security guarantees similar to the agreement agreed between Kyiv and London.
Umerov has said Ukrainian forces are running out of ammunition.
"A shortage of ammunition is a very real and pressing problem that our armed forces are facing at present," Umerov said.
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The French Defense Ministry said the artillery coalition "aims to combine efforts to help Ukraine have an artillery force that meets the needs of its counteroffensive and its army of the future, in the short and long term."
It is also regarded as another crucial step in Ukraine's transition from Soviet-era to Western artillery equipment.
But the transition has faced a main obstacle in the shortage of ammunition for the Western equipment. To deal with the shell shortage, the European Union has pledged to deliver 1 million shells by spring, but so far only some 300,000 have been delivered.
Meanwhile, Russian shelling on January 18 killed one person and wounded two others in Kupyansk, Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram.
Earlier in the day, Russia launched 33 Iranian-made drones and two S-300 guided missiles at Ukrainian targets, the military said, adding that it had shot down 22 of the drones.
Separately, the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine said one person was wounded and material damage was reported after drones attacked Kherson and Mykolayiv regions. A total of nine drones were downed in the two regions, the military said on Telegram.
On the battlefield, Russia's Defense Ministry said on January 18 that its troops had captured the small village of Vesele near Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, but the claim could not be independently verified.
