Paris: France is planning to provide Mirage 2000 warplanes to Ukraine to fend off attacks by the Russian forces in the ongoing conflict that has spanned more than two years, announced President Emmanuel Macron as he met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the D-Day commemorations. Macron said his government will announce the provision of the warplanes to Ukraine on Friday.
He did not specify how many Mirages France would provide, by when or under what financial terms. Macron had also proposed at least 4,500 Ukrainian pilots to be trained in France from this summer but did not say where the soldiers would be trained. Zelenskyy said in September he had struck an agreement on training Ukraine pilots in France in conversation with Macron.