Macron announces fighter jets delivery to Ukraine, mulls sending military instructors

France will deliver Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine and train pilots over the next six months, according to President Emmanuel Macron, who made announcements on Thursday.

“We will start a new cooperation and announce the delivery of Mirage 2000-5 […], enabling Ukraine to protect its territory and airspace. As of tomorrow, we will start a training programme for [Ukrainian] pilots,” the president said in a TV interview.

The first planes should be in operation in “five to six months” to accommodate for training time, Macron said. Training will exclusively take place in France.

Macron fell short of saying exactly how many jets would be sent to Ukraine – the exact number should be revealed during a press conference with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the Elysée on Friday.

These jets, Macron confirmed, could, in turn, be used to target enemy missile launching sites within Russian territory.

Last week in Germany, he gave Kyiv the green light to use Western-delivered weaponry to “neutralise […] identified targets” from which missiles are being launched.

On Thursday, the president also announced France would train and equip a military “brigade” of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers on Ukrainian soil: “We’ve done a lot with other European partners on training. We’re now entering a new phase”.

After days of hesitation and backroom negotiations, Macron confirmed that military instructors could be sent to the Western part of Ukraine to assemble this brigade, though he ruled out sending the French military on the frontlines.

“There is a capacity challenge. We must go faster [in training] tens of thousands of soldiers,” and bringing them to other member states is no longer an option. Sending instructors, on the other hand, could be a viable way forward.

“Other member states are on the same line of thought,” he said. “It is an ask from the Ukrainians; it does not amount to an escalation in the conflict, and it is a decision we will take as a coalition [of international partners]. Why should we exclude the idea?”

He is the first NATO leader to lay out the idea of training troops on Ukrainian soil so clearly.

Finally, the French president ruled out any peace plan between Ukraine and Russia amounting to “Ukrainian capitulation”. Instead, he hoped for “a negotiated peace by both parties, in light with international law, which gives due consideration to the Donbas region and Crimea”.

Macron was speaking on the margins of a three-day commemoration for the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy alongside several other world leaders, including Joe Biden, Charles III and Zelenskyy.

Earlier in the day, US President Biden drew a parallel between the “dark forces” of the Second World War and those threatening Ukraine and the West today.

“We will not walk away. If we do, Ukraine will be subjugated, and it will not end there. Ukraine’s neighbours will be threatened, all of Europe will be threatened,” he said.

On the war in the Middle East, Macron confirmed he would not recognise the state of Palestine as of now: “The situation is not stable on the ground; it would fail to have put any meaningful pressure on the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority must first undertake reforms”.

He said Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu remained a “legitimate interlocutor” despite Israel Defence Forces’ heavy bombing of Rafah in the Southern part of Palestine, drawing condemnation from the international community.

(Théo Bourgery-Gonse | Euractiv.fr)

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