PARIS – Ukraine received the 2000 Mirage 2000 fighter jet promised in France on Thursday, French military minister Sebastian Lecorne said the second in addition to the F-16 jet handed over by its allies last year. He said it provided a type of Western aircraft.
The Mirage 2000 jet arrived with Ukrainian pilots after several months of training in France, and in X’s post, “They will take part in defending the Ukrainian skies.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense posted an image of the 2000 Mirage 2000 taking off in Ukrainian colouring and “already in Ukraine.”
The main advantages of flying western jets include NATO weapons such as scalp/storm shadow air rack cruise missiles and guided bombs, as well as NATO weapons such as old aerial missiles stocked by many Ukrainian allies. It’s the ability to do that. The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway last year delivered their F-16s to Ukraine, while the Dutch planned to hand over another batch in 2025.
French President Macron announced plans to deliver the French Mirage 2000 jet to Ukraine in June, but details were not provided at the time. France had planned to deliver a total of six Mirage 2000-5 to Ukraine to Ukraine, according to budget documents released in October on behalf of the National Assembly’s Defense Committee.
The first delivery to Ukraine was a batch of three aircraft armed with MBDA’s mica air-inter-air missiles and scalp cruise missiles, as well as a saffron AASM hammer guided bomb, the French Daily Tribune reported in October . The aircraft is equipped with two 30 mm canons and nine hard points.
Mirage 2000-5 is an atmospheric version, with Ukrainian jets being upgraded with new equipment for air-to-air combat and defense against electronic warfare, Lecornu said in October. The Mirage 2000 D, used by the French Air Force, is the ground attack version.
The 2000 Mirage first flew in 1978, and in 1984 the Air Force defence version entered the French army. Dassault Airlines said it produced 600 aircraft, nearly half of which have been exported to eight countries, including Brazil and Brazil, the United Arab Emirates. and Taiwan.
The jet’s combat mass is 9.5 tons, its maximum takeoff weight is 17.5 tons, and its maximum speed is above Mach 2.2, allowing it to stay at the station for 2 hours and 40 minutes, 150 nautical miles from its departure point. According to Dassault Aviation.
France is gradually replacing the Mirage fleet with Dassault Airlines’ Lafare as it plans to retire from the Mirage 2000-5 from the Mirage 2000 D in 2029 and from the Mirage 2000 D in 2035.
According to a French Senate report in October, the operating costs for the Mirage 2000 in France are estimated to be around 17,000 euros per flight time. A 2022 report by the US Government Accountability Office found an operating expense of $26,927 per flight time in 2020.
Separately, Lecorne said Parliament gave final approval to France’s 2025 budget, with defence spending rising to 3.3 billion euros from last year to 50.5 billion euros. This year’s large-scale delivery to the military will include 14 Lafarejets, 308 vehicles from the Scorpion Program and many anti-Aster missiles.
“This budget increase, essential to our re-contracting, will allow us to continue modernize nuclear deterrence, improve wages for military personnel and women, and place the first orders for a new generation of aircraft carriers.” LeCornu said in X’s post.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a European correspondent for Defense News. He began his career with Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
