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PARIS — France is considering Ukraine’s request for fighter-jet pilot training, according to an aide to French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu.
The French and Ukrainian defense ministers are due to discuss the request during a call this week, the aide told POLITICO on Monday.
This follows renewed requests from Kyiv for fighter jets last week after its European allies agreed to supply battle tanks. In an interview with the daily French newspaper Le Figaro on Friday, the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called on Paris to help train its pilots on French planes.
“I’ve heard many experts speak highly of French planes and their pilots. I would naturally be very happy if Ukrainian pilots can be trained to fly French planes and put this expertise towards securing victory,” he said.
After securing Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks from Germany and the U.S., Ukraine has renewed calls to obtain long-range missiles and Western fighter jets, in particular the U.S. F-16s, as both Russia and Ukraine prepare for bigger offensives in the spring. Such weaponry has long been on Ukraine’s wish list but was deemed off limits by Western allies.
In recent days, several European and U.S. officials have indicated that the door was no longer closed to sending fighter jets to Ukraine. In January, the Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra said Amsterdam would examine a request for F-16 fighters with “an open mind,” adding that there were “no taboos” in terms of military support.
Last week, the deputy National Security adviser for the White House Jon Finer said the U.S. would be discussing the idea of giving fighter jets to Ukraine “very carefully” with Kyiv and allies.
“We have not ruled in or out any specific systems. We have tried to tailor our assistance to the phase of the fight the Ukrainians are in,” Finer said on MSNBC.
The F-16, a fourth-generation supersonic fighter, has been a successful export product for the U.S. in recent years, which raises the possibility of several countries banding together to give Ukraine F-16s, much like the loose coalition that decided to give Ukraine German-manufactured Leopard 2 tanks last week.
Germany, however, remains a key holdout and has rejected demands by Kyiv to supply fighter jets on the heels of Berlin’s agreement to send tanks, in what could be yet another standoff between Berlin and its allies.
“The question of combat aircraft does not arise at all,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview with Tagesspiegel published on Sunday. “I can only advise against entering into a constant competition to outbid each other when it comes to weapons systems.”
French fighter jets
Last week, the head of France’s defense committee at the National Assembly, Thomas Gassilloud — also a member of Macron’s Renaissance party — caused a stir when he told British daily the Telegraph “all the doors were open” to discussions over sending planes to Kyiv.
Speaking to POLITICO, Gassilloud, who is also an army reservist, said the West should take “a very open approach to requests from Ukraine” but cautioned that he wanted to see proof that the jets would be useful.
“Nobody has air superiority in Ukraine due to the massive use of surface-to-air missiles … Neither the Russian planes, nor the Ukrainians control the skies. So fighter jets will not have full freedom to operate if we send them into disputed skies,” he said.
For Gassilloud, a decision to train Ukrainian pilots on French fighter jets would only make sense if the government followed up with a decision to donate planes.
In January, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the French air force would transition to a fleet made up entirely of Rafale planes. According to several persons with knowledge of the matter, this means the French armed forces would have older jets, such as the Mirages 2000, which could potentially be available to give to Ukraine.
The French defense ministry said Monday that it has not yet received a formal request for fighter jets from Ukraine, and that it was focusing on the war-ravaged country’s more immediate needs for more air-defense systems.
