Ukrainian pilot says his French Mirage 2000 fighter has a 98% kill rate against Russian drones and missiles

• A Ukrainian Mirage 2000 pilot said the fighter had an almost perfect kill rate against Russian targets.

• The Ukrainian Air Force showed cockpit footage of the French jet destroying aerial targets.

• The crew said the aircraft shot down at least 12 Kh-101 cruise missiles as well as attack drones.

A Ukrainian team operating one of the few Dassaults in their country 2000’s mirage He said French-made warplanes were almost 100 percent effective against Russia’s weapons.

The Ukrainian Air Force released a video about its fourth-generation fighter jet on Wednesday; here a Mirage pilot and several technicians discussed the aircraft on the runway ahead.

“The effectiveness of intercepting enemy drones and missiles in this aircraft is 98%. These are impressive numbers,” the pilot said, sitting inside the single-seat Mirage 2000-5. His face was hidden and his name was not mentioned in the video.

Ukraine is expected to receive approximately 20 of the fourth-generation warplanes, of which the French army is phasing out its operations. For now there are only a handful of fighters in Kiev – previous estimates suggested five or six – then losing someone in july.

For Ukraine, Precious Western jets these are primarily reserved for air defense against threats such as cruise missiles.

A technician identified only as Dmytro showed the camera one of the main weapons for such missions: the infrared-guided Magic 2. air-to-air missile.

“It performed extremely well,” Dmytro said, placing his hand on the gun. “The probability of killing is almost 100%.”

The Ukrainian air force also released several videos of a Mirage 2000 destroying its targets, shot from the cockpit of the fighter jet.

Crew of featured Mirage 2000 says they shot down at least 12 Russians Kh-101 cruise missilesThey are air-launched long-range subsonic guided missiles.

“There are six on the plane right now, but there are actually a lot more,” Dmytro said of the die-kill markings for the Kh-101 on the fuselage of the fighter jet.

The fighter crew, in particular, said the shooting location was the third airstrip they had flown to in a week and highlighted how Ukraine had deployed its Mirage 2000s, as well as many other fighter jets. This tactic makes fighter jets more difficult to track and destroy than if the planes returned to a central airfield each time.

Fighter crews say they still need more options

Although the Mirage 2000 crew praised the French fighter jet, they said they needed longer-range options to destroy Russian drones and missiles.

Intended for air-to-air interceptor and dogfighting, the Magic 2 is a relatively short-range missile and entered operational service in the 1980s.

The Ukrainian pilot said Mirage 2000 operators needed “something in the middle between efficiency and cost” to combat the large amounts of munitions Russia is dumping on Ukraine.

The Kremlin is launching hundreds of powerful salvos of long-range drones and missiles against Ukraine, often pausing or reducing the intensity of attacks on some days to amass more weapons for mass attacks on others.

In the video of the Ukrainian air force, the pilot expressed the possibility of flying the French army’s modern fighter jet Rafale.

“Retraining on Rafale will be much faster than on aircraft of other countries as it is an aircraft from the same country,” he said.

Rafale is one of the aircraft that Ukraine is eagerly waiting for air force renewalwill likely emerge within the next decade or more. Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that his country had signed a letter of intent to purchase up to 100 Rafale F4s by the end of 2035.

The deal will make Ukraine one of Dassault’s aircraft customers, but it does not guarantee it will purchase all 100 aircraft. Kyiv also plans to include the American F-16 Fighting Falcon. Swedish Gripen in his new fleet.

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