Ukraine receives first Mirage 2000 fighter
jets from France
Feb 6, 2025,
05:30 PM
A Mirage 2000-5F fighter jet takes off from an air base in France on March 13, 2022. (Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images
PARIS — Ukraine received
the first Mirage 2000 fighter jets promised by France on Thursday, French Armed
Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said, giving the country its second type of
Western aircraft in addition to F-16 jets handed over by allies last year.
The Mirage 2000 jets
arrived with Ukrainian pilots on board, after several months of training in
France, Lecornu said in a post on X. “They will now
participate in defending the skies of Ukraine.”
The Ministry of Defense of
Ukraine posted an image of a
Mirage 2000 taking off in Ukrainian livery and the text
“Already in Ukraine.”
A major advantage of
flying Western jets is their ability to interface with NATO ordnance such as
the Scalp/Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles and guided bombs, as well
as older air-to-air missiles that many of Ukraine’s allies have in stock. The
Netherlands, Denmark and Norway delivered F-16s to Ukraine last year, with the
Dutch planning to hand over another batch in 2025.
French President Macron
had announced the plan to delivery French Mirage 2000 jets to Ukraine in June,
without providing details at the time. France was planning to deliver a total
of six Mirage 2000-5 to Ukraine, according to a budget
document published in October on behalf of the National Assembly’s defense
committee.
The first delivery to
Ukraine would be a batch of three aircraft, armed with MBDA’s Mica air-to-air
missiles and Scalp cruise missiles as well as Safran’s AASM Hammer guided
bombs, French daily La Tribune reported in October. The aircraft is equipped
with two 30 mm canons as well as nine hard points.
The Mirage 2000-5 is an
air-superiority version, and the jets for Ukraine were being upgraded with new
equipment for air-to-ground combat and defense against electronic warfare,
Lecornu said in October. The Mirage 2000 D in use with the French Air Force is
a ground-attack version.
The Mirage 2000 first flew
in 1978, and an air-defense version entered the French forces in 1984. Dassault
Aviation says it has produced 600 of the aircraft, with nearly half of them
exported to eight countries including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Greece
and Taiwan.
The jet has a combat
mass of 9.5 tons and a maximum take-off weight of 17.5 tons, a maximum
speed of more than Mach 2.2 and can remain on station for 2 hours 40 minutes at
a distance of 150 nautical miles from its departure base, according to Dassault
Aviation.
France has been gradually
replacing its Mirage fleet with Dassault Aviation’s Rafale, with the country
planning to retire the Mirage 2000-5 from its forces in 2029 and the Mirage
2000 D in 2035.
The operating cost of a
French Mirage 2000 is estimated to be around €17,000 per flying hour, according
to a French senate report in October. A 2022 report by the U.S. Government
Accountability Office found operating costs for the F-16 of $26,927 per flying
hour in 2020.
Separately, Lecornu said
parliament gave final approval to the French 2025 budget, with spending on
defense increasing to €50.5 billion, an increase of €3.3 billion from last
year. Major deliveries to the armed forces this year will include 14 Rafale
jets, as well as 308 vehicles in the Scorpion program and lots of Aster
air-defense missiles.
“Essential for our
rearmament, this increased budget will enable us to continue modernizing our
nuclear deterrent, improve the pay of our servicemen and women, and place the
first orders for the new-generation aircraft carrier,” Lecornu said in a post on X.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar
Merk: Bare medlemmer av denne bloggen kan legge inn en kommentar.