France is considering training pilots of Ukrainian combat aircraft – POLITICO

French Assistant Defense Minister Sebastien Licorne said that France is studying Ukraine’s request to train fighter pilots.

The French and Ukrainian defense ministers are set to discuss the request during a phone call this week, the aide told Politico on Monday.

This follows renewed orders from Kyiv for fighter jets last week after its European allies agreed to supply battle tanks. In an interview with Le Figaro French daily newspaper On Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov called on Paris to help train its pilots on French planes.

“I heard that many experts praise the French planes and their pilots. Naturally, I would be glad if Ukrainian pilots were trained to fly French planes and put this experience to victory.

After securing Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks from Germany and the United States, Ukraine has renewed calls for long-range missiles and Western fighter jets, particularly the American F-16, as both Russia and Ukraine prepare for bigger attacks in the spring. Such weapons had long been on the Ukrainian wish list, but Western allies considered them a no-go.

In recent days, many European and American officials have indicated that the door is no longer closed to sending fighter jets to Ukraine. In January, the Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra He said Amsterdam would consider ordering the F-16s “with an open mind,” adding that there were no “taboos” regarding military support.

Last week, White House Deputy National Security Adviser John Viner said the United States would discuss the idea of ​​giving fighter jets to Ukraine. “Very cautious” With Kyiv and its allies.

We have not excluded or excluded any specific systems. We have tried to adapt our assistance to the stage of the fighting that the Ukrainians are going through,” Viner said via MSNBC.

The F-16, a fourth-generation supersonic fighter, has been a successful export product for the United States in recent years, which raises the possibility of several countries banding together to give Ukraine the F-16s, just like the loose coalition decided to give the manufactured Leopard 2 tanks. In Ukraine last week.

However, Germany remains a major stronghold and has rejected Kyiv’s demands for fighter jets in the wake of Berlin’s agreement to send tanks, in what could be another confrontation between Berlin and its allies.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “The question of combat aircraft does not arise at all.” interview With Tagesspiegel published on Sunday. “I can only advise against getting into a constant competition to outbid each other when it comes to weapons systems.”

French fighter planes

Last week, the head of France’s defense committee in the National Assembly, Thomas Gassillod – also a member of Macron’s Ennahda party – caused an uproar when he told the British newspaper. The telegraph “All doors were open” to discussions about sending planes to Kyiv.

Speaking to POLITICO, Gaselod, who is also an Army reservist, said the West should take a “very open approach to requests from Ukraine” but warned that he wanted to see evidence that the planes would be useful.

“Nobody has air superiority in Ukraine because of the massive use of surface-to-air missiles… Neither the Russian planes nor the Ukrainians control the skies. So fighter jets will not have complete freedom of action if we send them into contested skies.”

For Jasilod, the decision to train Ukrainian pilots on French fighter jets would only make sense if the government followed through with the decision to donate the planes.

In January, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the French Air Force would transition to a fleet made entirely of Rafales. According to several people familiar with the matter, this means that the French armed forces will have older aircraft, such as the Mirage 2000, that could be available for delivery to Ukraine.

France’s Defense Ministry said on Monday it had not yet received a formal order for fighter jets from Ukraine and was focusing on the war-torn country’s immediate needs for more air defense systems.