PARIS \u2014 Ukraine has agreed on a plan to acquire 16 Rafale fighter jets from France together with the accompanying weapon systems, French President Emmanuel Macron said at a press conference here late Monday following a meeting of the group of countries that have pledged support to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Macron agreed on a roadmap between their two countries that also includes the acquisition of a first batch of SAMP\/T NG air-defense batteries, complementing systems and their missiles to be delivered in coming weeks, Macron said. France will also provide radar systems and additional missiles, the president said.<\/p>\n
The countries further approved licensing agreements for production in Ukraine of the AASM glide-bomb kit, the Aster 30 air-defense interceptor that arms the SAMP\/T system as well as the SCALP\/Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile, Macron said.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has suffered a shortage of interceptors to defeat ballistic threats, leaving the country with a gap in its air defenses as Russia has stepped up ballistic-missile attacks. United States President Donald Trump said earlier this month Ukraine would be allowed to manufacture its own interceptors for the Patriot air-defense system, though setting up local production could take years<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine has immediate needs, particularly in the anti-ballistic area,\u201d Macron said. He said the bilateral agreement is part of that, in addition to an initiative by Zelenskyy to create a coalition \u201cthat will accelerate Ukraine\u2019s anti-ballistic defense in a very concrete way.\u201d<\/p>\n Nine countries including France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Norway joined Ukraine in a coalition<\/a> that will develop an anti-ballistic air-defense system, according to a joint statement<\/a>. The system, called Freyja, will be centered on an interceptor from Ukrainian defense firm Fire Point.<\/p>\n Ukraine is also seeking to strengthen its air force and compensate for the loss of Soviet-era aircraft, agreeing in May to buy 20 new Gripen fighter jets<\/a>, and with Sweden planning to donate 16 older models next year. The country has previously received F-16 fighter jets, which are being used primarily in an air defense role to shoot down Russian cruise missiles and Shahed attack drones.<\/p>\n The first Rafale jets are expected to fly in Ukrainian skies as early as 2028 or 2029, and training of Ukrainian pilots will start in coming months, Macron said.<\/p>\n Ukraine in November signed a letter of intent to buy up to 100 Rafale jets<\/a> manufactured by Dassault Aviation. That followed a similar letter of intent in October between Ukraine and Sweden for the export of up to 150 Gripen jets<\/a>, produced by Saab.<\/p>\n Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Ukraine has agreed on a plan to acquire 16 Rafale fighter jets from France together with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[125],"tags":[2705,6985,72049,6986,6982,242,21349,245,49046,22694,42505,330],"class_list":["post-154072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-emmanuel-macron","tag-air-defense","tag-circulated-defense-news","tag-dassault","tag-defense-news","tag-dn-dnr","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-fighter-jet","tag-france","tag-gripen","tag-rafale","tag-saab","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116928951564186890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}