Emmanuel Macron announced, Monday, May 15, the day after a meeting in Paris with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to have “opened the door to train pilots” ukrainian fighter ” right now “.
“And this with several other European countries which are ready for it. I believe discussions are underway with the Americans.said the French president during an interview with the JT of 20 hours of TF1, while estimating, on the other hand, that to evoke a possible future delivery of fighter planes in kyiv “would be a theoretical debate”.
“We need to start training today, this is the agreement that several European countries have reached”he added, without providing details on this training process. “There is no taboo”he assured.
However, Paris had so far pushed back the question of a possible future delivery of combat aircraft, explaining that it would take many months to train pilots. The start of this training could therefore, in the long term, also pave the way for the delivery of devices.
Paris will deliver new ammunition
On the subject of weapons, the Head of State did not want to detail the new promises mentioned the day before during the visit of his counterpart. “We have decided to deliver new ammunition”he just said.
He also mentioned the training of Ukrainian troops “who will be in charge of leading the counter-offensive and resisting”especially for “repair vehicles, guns”. “That’s also what Ukraine needs”he pleaded, while France is sometimes accused of doing less than other major European countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany in terms of arms deliveries to Kiev.
According to Emmanuel Macron, “France’s strategy is simple: help Ukraine to resist, to organise, when it chooses, a counter-offensive in order to be able to bring everyone back to the negotiating table and under the conditions it chooses. , build a lasting peace for her”.
Sunday evening, in a joint statement published after the dinner between MM. Macron and Zelensky, the two countries announced that France would train and equip “several battalions” Ukrainians with “dozens of armored vehicles and light tanks, including AMX-10RC (…) in the coming weeks “.
If any new delivery of weapons is important for Ukraine, these announcements do not mark a change of scale in terms of support from France. In recent months, Paris has already delivered AMX-10 RC light tanks and armored forward vehicles to Kiev, two vehicles gradually withdrawn from French arsenals, where they are replaced by Jaguars and Griffons.