Macron: France intends to train a brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces of 4.5 thousand soldiers
Paris plans to train 4.5 thousand soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). French President Emmanuel Macron stated this on TF1 TV channel.
He clarified that the Ukrainian military will be equipped with the ammunition and weapons necessary “to protect their own territory.”
Macron also noted that he does not consider the sending of French instructors to the western regions of Ukraine to be a factor in the escalation of the conflict. The head of the Fifth Republic noted that the request for foreign specialists comes from Kyiv.
Macron promised Ukraine modern fighters
The French leader promised that he would transfer Mirage 2000-5 multirole fighters to Ukraine. He noted that the exact number of aircraft that will enter the Armed Forces of Ukraine has not yet been determined. A delivery date has also not been announced.
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Macron added that a training program for Ukrainian pilots will start in France on June 7. After completion of the course, Paris will provide aircraft supplies. According to Macron, training usually takes five to six months.
Earlier, retired colonel and military expert Anatoly Matviychuk, in a conversation with Lenta.ru, named the features of these fighters.
This is a fourth generation fighter, the main combat aircraft of France. They are supersonic, one of the leading fighters in the NATO army
“Will Ukraine be able to exploit them? I really doubt. The fact is that the Mirage is a pure French fighter, the training for which is very difficult. It is carried out in flight schools in France; the training period for pilots is up to five to six years. The basing of this type of fighter requires a special aviation network – these are target designation stations, navigation stations and especially service stations. There is nothing like this in Ukraine. How many such fighters can France give Ukraine? No more than 12. For 12, deploying multi-billion dollar service and supply systems is stupidity, which the French are unlikely to do,” he explained.
Military expert Alexey Leonkov also doubted the effectiveness of using Mirages in Ukraine. “The Mirage 2000 fighter is weak in terms of operations at significant distances from target designation centers and airfields,” he said. The analyst agreed that the problem lies in the difficulty of training Ukrainian pilots.
Macron allowed the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fire French missiles at Russia
The French President allowed Ukraine to attack Russian territory with French missiles. He stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces can fire at territories from which Russian missiles are launched. At the same time, Macron clarified, Paris prohibits attacks on civilians.
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On June 2, it was reported that France had given Ukraine permission to use its long-range SCALP missiles to strike Russian regions. This became known from an interview with an Air Force military aviation officer. We are talking about unofficial permission to fire missiles at airfields located in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. The range of French missiles reaches 250 kilometers.
In May, it became clear that France had transferred SCALP missiles to Ukraine to be dismantled. According to RFI, the French government decided to transfer to Ukraine military equipment with an expiring service life, which was stored in special “cocoons”. The missiles, some of which were disassembled, were considered suitable for use. Initially, this SCALP batch was to be destroyed, but the country’s authorities decided to restore the equipment and transfer it to Kyiv, in order to thus preserve their own strategic arsenal. “This was a very effective economic solution, since the SCALPs stored in “cocoons” were in any case subject to disposal in the future,” the source noted.
In March, a resident of Crimea demanded that France take away the SCALP missile from her garden. The 40-year-old Russian woman said that the device fell on the site during one of the attacks from Ukraine and dug several meters into the ground. According to the Crimean woman, no one was injured as a result of the incident. Hoping to get rid of the device, she contacted the French embassy, but the diplomatic mission staff did not contact her.
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