On Thursday 6 June, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the sale of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine within the year.
“Starting tomorrow, we’re going to launch a program to train pilots and then hand over these aircraft,” the President of France said.
Macron did not specify the exact amount of aircraft France would sell to Ukraine, as his country is “in the process of building a coalition with other partners.”
The aim is to train pilots “as early as this summer”, for “five or six months”, so as to have “pilots and aircraft” by “the end of the year.”
Pilots in France
“It’s in France that we’ll be training the pilots,” the French head of state said, while the question of sending Western military instructors has been raised this week by several players, Macron assured that there were no French military instructors on Ukrainian soil ”today,” even though there is “a request” from Kyiv for Western trainers to come to Ukraine.
He said he did not see this as a “factor of escalation” in the conflict, but that it would be a “collective” decision, in “coalition.” France also plans to train 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers, Emmanuel Macron stated.
Russia said on Tuesday that it could not rule out its forces striking French instructors on Ukrainian soil. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the nationality of the instructors is irrelevant and that they would not be granted any special protection.
Emmanuel Macron will receive his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Élysée Palace on Friday, 7 June, the day after the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, to discuss “Ukraine’s needs” in the face of Russia, the French presidency announced.
Read more:
- Russia threatens to target French military instructors in Ukraine if they are sent
- Reuters: France could announce sending military trainers to Ukraine next week
- Biden to meet with Zelenskyy in France and Italy this week
- France excludes Russia from Normandy landing anniversary celebrations
- Syrskyi: France to send military instructors to Ukraine
- Macron: France should maintain a stance capable of intervening if Russia-Ukraine war escalates