Ukraine expects French Mirage 2000 fighters, the sky war with Russia intensifies

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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.
According to Forbes, 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 last few Mirage 2000Cs, out of around 120 Dassault built for the French air force, finally retired in 2022. It’s these old but well-maintained airframes an unnamed French official apparently was referring to when, last year, he told France 24 that one option for Paris was to donate to Kyiv 13 Mirage 2000Cs that still had “a bit of potential.”
Those jets could reinforce the Ukrainian air force’s fleet of 40 or s0 1980s-vintage Sukhoi Su-27s that, for two years now, have patrolled Ukrainian air space and occasionally flown low-level bombing sorties.
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 French air force is upgrading, for another few years of service, 48 of the 86 Mirage 2000Ds that Dassault built, adding new munitions including MICA missiles.
The rest of the D-models are retiring. In theory, they’re available for onward transfer to Ukraine, according to Forbes.

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