The Mirage 2000D hypothesis in Ukraine increasingly credible

For almost a year now, several rumors have been reporting the possible delivery, by France, of modernized Mirage 200D tactical bombers to Ukraine. So far, no official confirmation has been made on this matter. But several recent pieces of information, including the announcements made by President Macron concerning the delivery of SCALP missiles and A2SM Hammer bombs to Ukraine, during his press conference on January 16, tend to reinforce the credibility of this assumption.

Western combat planes are part of the equipment that Ukraine has been clamoring for since the start of the conflict. Indeed, the hundred Mig-29s, Su-25s, Su-24s and Su-27s which formed the air forces at the start of the conflict, were largely inferior to the Russian air forces, and their thousand combat planes, including Su-34 bombers, Su-30 and Su-35 multi-purpose heavy fighters, as well as a handful of Su-57s.

The various rumors concerning the delivery of Mirage 2000 to Ukraine since the start of the conflict

Ukraine's Eastern European allies, particularly Poland, quickly responded to Ukraine's calls by transferring their Mig-29s and Su-25s inherited from the Warsaw Pact. It took, however, more than a year for Kyiv to convince the West to follow Warsaw's example, and another year to carry out the transformation programs for Ukrainian pilots and technical teams on the Danish and Dutch F-16s, the first Western fighters which will be implemented by Ukraine in the coming months.

Other aircraft models were also mentioned by Kyiv, including the Swedish Gripen, but also the French Mirage 2000. If Stockholm linked the possibility of delivering JAS 39 Gripen C/D to Ukraine with its accession to NATO membership, France, for its part, had been most discreet on the subject.

It is true that the Mirage 2000C, recently withdrawn from service, and requested by many voices, had, in fact, no interest in going to Ukraine, nor the Ukrainian air forces in using them. Not modernized for several years, these devices, otherwise exhausted, could only use the short-range R550 Magic 2 missiles and its 30 mm cannon as weapons, while their defense systems were largely obsolete to evolve in the Ukrainian sky.

As for the Mirage 2000-5s still in service with the Air and Space Force, much more capable with their RDY radar and their MICA IR and EM missiles, transferring them would have weakened the French operational potential too much. to respond effectively to the imposed operational contract.

The Mirage 2000D, a fighter bomber tailored to Ukrainian needs

This left the Mirage 2000D attack aircraft, of which 55 examples have been, or are in the process of being modernized, giving them much more advanced capabilities both to increase their survivability in combat and to use new munitions, including the air missile. -self-defense air MICA IR, instead of Magic 2.

A few days ago, the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Air Force raised the possibility that Mirage 2000Ds replace Ukrainian Su-24 tactical bombers, while A-10s could replace the Su-25 close air support aircraft, and the already planned F-16s, surviving Su-27s and Mig-29s in air defense missions.

Questioned on several occasions on the subject, both by journalists and by parliamentarians, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, for its part, has always been evasive, even after the newspaper Le Figaro revealed that crews and maintenance personnel Ukrainians were in training at the Mont-de-Marsan air base, which has since been neither confirmed nor denied by Paris.

In this context, the announcements made by the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, regarding the evolution of French support for Kyiv, take on a lot of meaning.

40 SCALP cruise missiles and hundreds of A2SM bombs for Ukraine announced by Emmanuel Macron

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