French Defence Minister says France will focus on providing Ukraine with aircraft bombs

France will not provide Ukraine with Mirage 2000 fighter jets, instead focusing on providing the Ukrainian Armed Forces with bombs that can be adapted to Soviet-made aircraft.

Source: Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of Defence of France, at a meeting of the National Assembly Defence Committee; Ukrinform news agency; Zone militaire

Quote: "As for aircraft, on the whole, we are also trying to do something useful. To be as honest as possible, and I’ve never said this publicly, instead of supplying Mirage 2000 jets, of which we have very few and whose MOC [maintenance in operational condition] would present terribly complicated challenges, we preferred to start general pilot training."

Details: Lecornu said that France did not stop there: "We chose to spend money and engineering resources on adapting A2SM (air-to-surface) bombs to the generations of Soviet-made Su-24 and MiG-29 aircraft that Ukraine already has, rather than focusing solely on the Mirage."

Lecornu noted that the 50 A2SM bombs being delivered to Ukraine every month, which are compatible with Soviet aircraft, were a game changer. And that was the most important thing. After that, there are discussions about aircraft, "but that’s never the central point on which we are expected to focus."

He added that France has never been caught in a discrepancy between promises and actions. On the contrary, Paris waited until the logistics had been worked out and the deliveries had been made before announcing them.

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