The first Mirage 2000 fighters promised to Ukraine by France’s President Macron arrived on Thursday along with their French-trained crews.
Ukraine has received more last-generation Western-made fighter jets today, although exactly how many was not revealed. France’s armed forces minister Sébastien Lecornu wrote on Thursday morning the first of the 1970s-heritage Mirage 2000s, a French domestically-produced analogue of the U.S.-made F-16, “arrived in Ukraine today” with “Ukrainian pilots on board who have been trained for several months in France”.
Now the French jets are in-country, they will “participate in defending the skies of Ukraine”, the minister added.
Reports State First F-16s Have Arrived in Ukraine, but Kyiv Remains Circumspect https://t.co/zsEmRv0ABe
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 2, 2024
Publisher France24 states the aircraft are the 1990s-upgrade Mirage-2000-5 stock, which were outfitted with a new generation of sensors, electronics, avionics, and other cockpit equipment to make it more combat effective. The aircraft have also been further prepared beyond the improvements they received for service with the French armed forces to incorporate new lessons learnt from the Ukraine war and have been modified to better withstand Russian electronic warfare.
French President Emmanuel Macron had first promised the Mirages in June 2024. Out of the 26 Mirage 2000-5’s that remained in service to cover the transition period between the withdrawal of the Mirage and the introduction of its successor, the Dassault Rafale, six were to be given to Ukraine.
But no indication was given today of how many have been handed over so far, Paris citing security reasons for the secrecy.
The fast training of Ukrainian pilots and ground crews to field the Mirage may stand as something of a rebuke to the British position on donating fighter jets to Ukraine, with London having claimed as it was pointless to try and spend five years bringing Ukrainian pilots up to scratch on British fighters. Instead, the UK joined the so-called fighter jet coalition, backing Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway to give their old F-16s to Kyiv instead.
As reported at the time of the first deliveries of the F-16 to Ukraine, it appeared the United States had carefully managed the deal to prevent American-made jets fighting in the skies over Ukraine. All of the 20-or-so F-16s thought to be in Ukrainian hands now were made under licence at European aircraft factories in the 1990s.
