Zelenskyy: France is ready to help Ukraine finance drone production

France is ready to invest in the production of Ukrainian drones of various types. This was announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following a telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Leaders discussed Ukraine's main defense needs, including air defense.

"We need reliable protection against Russian missiles and drones. We talked about supplying additional missiles to the SAMP/T and Crotale systems," Zelensky added.

They also discussed financing the production of Ukrainian drones of all types. France "is ready to help us with this, we will work together," the President emphasized.

They also discussed training of Ukrainian pilots on Mirage 2000.

"We appreciate the fact that France will continue their training, so we will be able to train even more additional pilots," the head of state stated.

Zelenskyy briefs Macron on the results of the third meeting with the Russian side in Istanbul, where they agreed on a new prisoner exchange.

He added that Ukraine is waiting for a response to the proposal to hold a summit meeting by the end of August. It must be attended by representatives of Europe, the president noted .

We discussed the European integration path in detail. They agreed to work on finding solutions that will allow the opening of the first negotiation cluster in the near future. It is important that Ukraine and Moldova continue to move in sync, the President said.

"We also talked about the work of Ukraine's anti-corruption infrastructure, which is fully operational. The President's draft law guarantees the independence and effectiveness of anti-corruption bodies and prevents Russian influence on them," Zelenskyy summarized.

• On July 21, 2015, the President held a meeting on the development, production, and procurement of drones.
• On July 24, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine needs $6 billion to produce interceptor drones.