France has delivered the first Mirage 2000 fighters to Ukraine. This was announced on Thursday by French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, but the exact number of aircraft was not named. At the same time, the Russian state corporation Rostec stated that this type of fighter is obsolete and significantly inferior to modern Russian aircraft in its characteristics.

"The Mirage 2000 is an obsolete aircraft, which in terms of flight and technical characteristics is not much different from the F-16 and is significantly inferior to modern Russian aircraft", - Rostec notes.

The Mirage 2000's range of destruction of fighter-type air targets is a maximum of 50 kilometers, while the Russian Su-35S and MiG-31 can destroy targets at a distance of several hundred kilometers. In this regard, according to Russian experts, using the Mirage 2000 for air combat near the front line will be extremely ineffective.

However, analysts point out the possibility of using Mirage 2000 as carriers of SCALP and Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Rostec does not rule out that this task may be the main one for French fighters in Ukraine, although they specify that much depends on the modification of the transferred aircraft.

However, according to Russian military experts, even in this case, the Mirage 2000 will not give a significant advantage to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The fact is that the Ukrainian army already uses SCALP cruise missiles with the help of Soviet Su-24 aircraft. The main difference may be only in increased maneuverability and simplification of the strike process.

"Using Mirage 2000s to launch cruise missiles could actually simplify strikes, as these fighters would not need to climb to high altitudes to launch missiles, making attacks stealthier and more difficult for air defenses to intercept.", analysts believe.

The Mirage 2000 is a multirole fighter jet developed in France in the late 1970s. It served with the French Air Force for decades, but is now considered outdated compared to modern counterparts such as the Rafale or the American F-35.