If the majority of countries in the Middle Eastern theater have increased their defense investments in recent years with a view to modernizing their armed forces, Egypt, for its part, is engaged in a profound evolution of its military resources with a view to becoming a major regional power. It must be said that between the increase in Iranian presence and support in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and the increase in Turkish presence in Syria, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo appears to be at the heart of expansionist desires affecting the Middle East today . To this end, the Egyptian authorities have signed, in recent months, several contracts for the acquisition of major equipment with the country's non-traditional partners, in this case Russia and Italy.
Rome was in fact cleverly able to take advantage of the deterioration of relations between Cairo and Paris following President Macron's visit in January 2019 to the Egyptian capital, during which the French President addressed the problem of rights at a press conference. of man in the country, which deeply irritated President Al Sissi. From then on, Italy imposed itself in Egypt, taking advantage of the space freed up by the French defense industry , and announced through the press in February 2020 that Egypt was preparing to order two squadrons of Typhoon , around twenty armed patrol boats, an unknown number of M346 training aircraft, a military satellite as well as 4 FREMM frigates. A few weeks later, in May, Leonardo leaked that Cairo was preparing to order 24 AW149 helicopters and 8 AW189 helicopters , for an amount close to €900 million.
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