President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France would send Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine, in what would appear to be a significant increase in his country’s direct military support to Kyiv.
“Tomorrow we will launch a new cooperation and announce the transfer of Mirage 2000 [jets], which help Ukraine protect its skies,” Macron said during an interview with broadcaster TF1 in the northern city of Caen, coinciding with the start of an official visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The French president also said Ukrainians would receive training in France for five to six months as early as this summer, with a target of training 4,500 service personnel.
I know next to nothing about air combat, and less about the Mirage. But isn’t having more airframes in the air to shoot down more things still a net positive? It doesn’t look like anything it can carry has a long range. However even if they’re not used for anything close to Russian AA, can’t they still be quite valuable for, missile/drone defense in western Ukraine?