The first French Mirage 2000 fighters, which Paris promised to provide to Kyiv as part of military aid, have arrived in Ukraine, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said. “Ukrainian pilots who have undergone months of training in France will now help defend the skies over Ukraine,” Lecornu wrote on social media.
However, he did not specify how many fighters were transferred to Kyiv. Previously, sources for La Tribune said that the first batch would include three aircraft, and in total, France, which has 26 aircraft of this type, could transfer six fighters to the Ukrainian army. French President Emmanuel Macron first announced the decision to provide Ukraine with Mirage 2000 aircraft in early June 2024. At the end of December last year, Lecornu promised that the transfer of the fighters would be completed within the first three months of 2025. Then he noted that the aircraft would be equipped with new equipment, in particular air-to-ground fire systems and an electronic warfare system. Ukraine allowed the use of French aircraft as carriers for long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which the Ukrainian army uses to strike deep into Russian territory.
The Mirage 2000 is a fourth-generation multirole fighter developed by the French company Dassault in the 1970s. It is capable of performing a wide range of tasks, from intercepting air targets to delivering high-precision strikes against ground targets. This aircraft has become one of the most successful projects of French aviation.