Ukraine ‘Expects’ Ex-French Mirage 2000 Fighters. ‘We Are Talking,’ Zelensky Says.

“ we are talking about fighter planes with France,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference in Kyiv on Sunday. Zelensky’s statement at the Ukraine: Year 2024 conference seems to confirm reporting from this year and last that the Ukrainian government has requested some of France’s surplus Mirage 2000 fighters. What the statement doesn’t confirm is which version of the Mirage 2000 officials are discussing. Most observers assume the Ukrainians want Mirage 2000Ds that French plane-maker Dassault optimized for ground-attack missions. But French officials also have mentioned air-defense-optimized Mirage 2000Cs. The single-engine, supersonic Mirage 2000 with its distinctive delta-shape wing was the French air force’s main fighter for 20 years starting in the mid-1980s. It began leaving service as new, twin-engine Rafales arrived in meaningful numbers in the early 2000s. The ultimate version of the Mirage 2000C in French service had a single seat, an RDI pulse-doppler radar, the M53-P2 engine, a night-vision-compatible cockpit and provision for MICA radar-guided air-to-air missiles as well as laser-guided bombs. The surplus Mirage 2000Cs could not reinforce the swing-wing Sukhoi Su-24 bombers that carry Ukraine’s French-made SCALP-EG land-attack cruise missiles. The 200-mile-range SCALPs are some of Ukraine’s best deep-strike munitions. Two-seat Mirage 2000Ds could bolster the two- or three-dozen Su-24s, however. One of the main differences between the Mirage 2000C and the newer Mirage 2000D, beside the additional seat in the latter, is that the Ds are compatible with SCALPs as well as with most of France’s other precision air-to-ground munitions. The Cs are older. The Ds are younger. The Cs can fire MICA missiles but can’t fire SCALPs. The un-upgraded Ds can’t fire MICAs but can fire SCALPs. Which model the Ukrainians might prefer probably depends on what they want to do with the Mirages: shoot at Russian jets or strike Russian targets on the ground and at sea. Their preference might not matter. “We expect France to provide us with aviation,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence told.