Rostec compares French Mirage 2000 with Russian fighter jets
Mirage 2000 fighter jets supplied by France to Ukraine would be quickly destroyed by the Russian military if Kiev used them near the front line, Russia's Rostec defense conglomerate has said.
Earlier, on February 6, French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that Kiev had received the first batch of fourth-generation Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets, following a commitment made by President Emmanuel Macron last summer. Mr. Lecornu said that these aircraft will be flown by Ukrainian pilots who have been trained in France.
When asked by TASS news agency about the prospects of Kiev using French fighter jets, a Rostec representative asserted: “If they are deployed to engage in air combat or carry out airstrikes near the front line, they will be quickly shot down.”
According to this representative, the Mirage 2000 is “an outdated aircraft, significantly inferior to modern Russian fighters.” TASS sources assert that, like the US-designed F-16 fighters supplied to Ukraine from Western countries in August 2024, the French aircraft can only be used in areas far from the battlefield.
“As a fighter, the F-16 turned out to be much worse than expected,” the Rostec representative emphasized.
According to RT, the much-anticipated delivery of US F-16 fighters has not had a significant impact on the battlefield. Ukraine lost its first F-16 on its first mission in early September 2024. A Ukrainian MP later claimed that the plane was shot down by mistake by a Patriot air defense system – also provided by the West. Since then, there has been almost no information about the use of F-16s in combat.
On February 6, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov welcomed the arrival of Mirage 2000s and additional F-16 fighters from the Netherlands, declaring that “Ukrainian skies are becoming safer.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also thanked French President Macron for providing the fighter jets. “The French president always keeps his word, and we appreciate that,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
For its part, Moscow has repeatedly warned that the US and EU countries' provision of weapons to Kiev will not prevent Russia from achieving its military goals, but will only prolong the conflict and increase the risk of direct confrontation with NATO.
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