France could fulfill Ukraine’s request for combat aircraft

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The French government could be willing to offer some of its older planes – possibly a Dassault Mirage – but Paris is aware of the difficulties in training the Ukrainian pilots and the 10 support personnel needed for the plane.

The last condition is that President Emmanuel Macron does not judge shipments of fighter jets as a risk of escalating the war in Ukraine into a war between Russia and NATO.

Responsibility for defense policy rests with Macron and his defense council, but Mr. Gassillod, a veteran and ally of the French president, has an influential voice outside of it.

The Elysée has been asked to comment.

“Nuclear weapons are the only thing we won’t have.”

Volodymyr Zelensky urged the West to send Kyiv long-range missiles and fighter jets after the US and Germany promised Abrams and Leopard tanks.

Eleven people were killed and 11 others were wounded in several waves of Russian drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities on Thursday.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, the idea of ​​providing lethal aid was highly controversial, but the West has since broken taboo after taboo.

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, told German lawmakers that “there will be no delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine” on Wednesday.

Kyiv will feel a great deal of interest from Schulz’s repeated detours on arms deliveries to Ukraine since Russia’s illegal invasion in February of last year.

Ukraine will now press for Western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the US F-16 to replace its Soviet-era planes, said Yury Sak, an adviser to Defense Minister Oleksey Reznikov.

“They didn’t want to give us the HIMARS systems, and then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, and now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, we have nothing left that we won’t get,” he said.

Following statements from Germany and the United States this week, Canada confirmed Thursday night that it will send four Tigers. Poland also announced that it would urgently start preparing tank crews for the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks.

Warsaw is at the forefront of an international coalition of European allies working to send between 90 and 100 vehicles to Ukraine.

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