For almost a year, there have been several rumors about the possible delivery by France of modernized Mirage 200D tactical bombers to Ukraine. So far there is no official confirmation of this. However, several recent pieces of information, including President Macron's announcements about the supply of SCALP missiles and A2SM hammer bombs to Ukraine during his press conference on January 16, tend to strengthen the credibility of this assumption.
Western fighter jets are among the equipment Ukraine has been demanding since the start of the conflict. In fact, the hundred Mig-29, Su-25, Su-24 and Su-27 that formed the Air Force at the beginning of the conflict were vastly inferior to the Russian Air Force and its thousand fighter aircraft, including Su-34 bombers, heavy multirole fighters Su- 30 and Su-35 as well as a handful of Su-57s.
The various rumors about the delivery of Mirage 2000 to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict
Ukraine's Eastern European allies, particularly Poland, quickly responded to Ukraine's demands by transferring their Mig-29s and Su-25s inherited from the Warsaw Pact. However, it took more than a year for Kiev to convince the West to follow Warsaw's example, and another year to carry out the conversion programs for Ukrainian pilots and technical teams on the Danish and Dutch F-16s, the first Western fighters , which do this will be implemented by Ukraine in the coming months.
Sweden linked the delivery of the JAS 39 Gripen to Ukraine to its membership in NATO.
Other aircraft models were also mentioned by Kiev, including the Swedish Gripen, but also the French Mirage 2000. If Stockholm linked the possibility of supplying JAS 39 Gripen C/Ds to Ukraine to its accession to NATO membership, France, for its part, behaved accordingly extremely discreet about this matter.
It is true that the Mirage 2000C, which was recently withdrawn from service and was called for by many voices, actually had no interest in going to Ukraine, nor did the Ukrainian Air Force have any interest in using it. These devices were not modernized for several years and were otherwise exhausted. They could only use the R550 Magic 2 short-range missiles and their 30mm cannon as weapons, while their defense systems were largely obsolete to evolve in the Ukrainian skies.
As for the Mirage 2000-5, which is still in service with the Aerospace Force and is much more powerful with its RDY radar and its MICA-IR and EM missiles, a transfer would have weakened the French operational potential too much . to respond effectively to the measures imposed in the operating contract.
The Mirage 2000D, a fighter-bomber tailored to Ukrainian needs
What remained was the Mirage 2000D attack aircraft, 55 examples of which have been modernized or are currently being modernized, giving them significantly more advanced capabilities to both increase their combat survivability and to use new ammunition, including the air missile. -self -Defense Air MICA IR, instead of Magic 2.
The Mirage 2000D can carry a SCALP ER cruise missile
A few days ago, the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Air Force expressed the possibility that Mirage 2000D would replace the Ukrainian Su-24 tactical bombers, while A-10 could replace air support aircraft. Close to Su-25 and the already planned F-16, Su-27 and Mig-29 survived in air defense missions.
The French Ministry of Defense remained consistently evasive on several questions on the subject, both from journalists and parliamentarians, even after the newspaper Le Figaro announced that Ukrainian crews and maintenance personnel were being trained there at the Mont-de-Marsan airfield in Paris neither confirmed nor denied.
In this context, the announcements of the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron about the development of French support for Kiev are of great importance.
40 SCALP cruise missiles and hundreds of A2SM bombs for Ukraine were announced by Emmanuel Macron
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