France to supply Mirage warplanes to Ukraine, says Macron

Paris: France will supply Mirage warplanes to Ukraine and train their soldiers, French President Emmanuel Macron has said in an interview with French media.

“We will launch a new cooperation and transfer Mirage 2000-5s,” Macron said on Thursday evening. The French leader also promised to train a whole Ukrainian battalion of 4,500 troops, to be deployed on the battlefield, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said the delivery of French fighter jets “is not a factor of escalation” and promised “these weapons will not be used to bomb civilians”. Additionally, Macron didn’t exclude the possibility of sending military instructors to Ukraine.

“There should be no taboo on this subject,” he said in the interview.

Mirage 2000 is a French multi-role, single-engine, fourth-generation jet fighter, manufactured by Dassault Aviation.

At the end of February, Macron suggested European nations should send troops to Ukraine during a meeting in Paris but many other European countries, including Germany, Britain, Spain, and Italy, voiced their disagreement.

Following Macron’s remarks in February, Russia warned a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable if the alliance sends troops to Ukraine.

Earlier on Thursday, Marcon led a ceremony held at Omaha Beach in Normandy, northern France, to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

According to a live broadcast by French media BFMTV, some 20 heads of state and government, including US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, participated in the event.

En route to France for the ceremony, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday that the US will maintain its policy of not sending military advisors to Ukraine.

The Normandy landings along the French coast on June 6, 1944, marked an important turning point in World War II, paving the way to the Allied’s victory against Nazi Germany.

–IANS