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.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
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