Key Points and Summary: Ukraine is pivoting to European airpower, signing historic deals for 150 Saab Gripens and 100 Dassault Rafales while U.S. orders stall.
-The Hero: The French-made Mirage 2000 is the current star, with pilots reporting a 98% success rate against Russian drones and missiles using the “old” Magic 2 missile.
Mirage 2000 Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-The Shift: European funding rules (PURL) and superior combat performance are driving this shift away from U.S. platforms.
-The Future: Pilots are calling for the Meteor missile and transitioning to the Rafale to maintain air superiority.
France’s Dassault Mirage 2000 Fighter: The Unsung Hero of the Ukraine War
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – In recent weeks, Ukraine has signed agreements to purchase up to 150 Swedish-made Saab JAS-39 fighter aircraft and up to 100 Dassault Rafale fighters from France.
To put this in perspective, these are the largest export orders of fighter aircraft to any nation since South Korea purchased 120 F-16s from the US firm General Dynamics in 1991.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Taylor “FEMA” Hiester, F-16 Viper Demonstration Team commander and pilot, performs aerial maneuvers in a U.S. Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon during an air show at Latrobe, Pennsylvania, June 21, 2025. The F-16, a multi-role fighter aircraft capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, demonstrates its versatility through dynamic aerial demonstrations at air shows across the globe. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Steven Cardo)
It is also the largest export order ever for both these aircraft types.
The only export customer acquisition that comes close to these numbers is the order for 80 Rafale aircraft from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), signed in December 2021. Deliveries of those aircraft initiated at the beginning of 2025
Conspicuous by their absence are the lack of any orders for US-made fighter aircraft from Ukraine.
Part of this is due to the President Donald Trump administration no longer providing weaponry—debatably at US taxpayer expense—or financing the purchase of hardware.
Instead, European countries are increasingly required to buy weaponry from the US and then donate it to Ukraine under a new NATO-administered program called the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL).
This practice only partly explains the lack of orders for US aircraft. “If the Europeans now must foot the entire bill for arming Ukraine, then they are not going to use their money to support the business of the American firms that compete with their own domestic defense suppliers. They will spend it on Saab and Dassault, and they are not going to funnel it to Lockheed Martin or Boeing,” said a retired European defense firm executive who spoke to National Security Journal.
Better Success Rate
But there are reasons beyond where the money is being spent that have Ukraine showing greater interest in European fighter aircraft than in US models.
JAS 39 Gripen E Fighters. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Simply, European aircraft are achieving a better success rate in critical air defense missions.
This past week, Ukrainian news sources reported that a pilot with the Ukrainian Air Force (PSU), flying the French-made Dassault Mirage 2000, achieved a 98 percent success rate in intercepting Russian drones and missiles.
There has probably been no better advertisement for the Mirage 2000’s combat performance than since it entered service.
This exceptional success rate also demonstrates just how critical supplies of major Western weapons platforms are to Ukraine continuing to beat back the Russian military.
Interviewed by the publication Defence Blog, a PSU pilot currently flying the Mirage 2000 has described the Dassault jet’s performance as highly effective in live air-to-air combat. The Mirage 2000, he says, has been particularly adept at taking down Shahed drones and missile attacks.
“The effectiveness of shooting down enemy drones and missiles on this aircraft is 98 percent,” the pilot said during an on-camera interview, which is rarely permitted at any operational airfield. “These are impressive numbers.”
Older But Still Reliable Weaponry
This pilot is performing these intercepts in a Mirage 2000-5F configuration, armed with the R550 Magic 2 short-range air-to-air missile.
The original Magic design dates back to the 1960s, when it was developed to compete in the international marketplace with the original US-made AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided (IR) missile.
R550 Magic 2 improves on the original Magic design by replacing the AD3601 seeker head with the AD3633. The improved seeker head enables targeting and firing on targets in the frontal hemisphere. The original R550 Magic 1 version could only be fired at the rear hemisphere of a target due to the older seeker’s IR detector’s limited sensitivity.
This missile, while an older design, is used by the PSU to intercept incoming aerial threats. The pilot noted in his interview that the Magic 2 missile “has almost a 100 per cent kill rate.” He pointed to the painted icons on his aircraft denoting six kills. Still, he told the publication that the actual number of his kills is higher, because not all engagements were documented within visual range.
This PSU pilot previously flew one of Ukraine’s Soviet-era Sukhoi Su-27 fighters. He then travelled to France to complete a conversion training course on the Mirage 2000. “I trained in the French Republic together with French fighter Pilots,” he told the Blog.
“For about six months we were taught to pilot and use weapons on the Mirage 2000 two-seat training aircraft. Then we switched to the single-seat aircraft—the very one I am in now.”
He added that he and other pilots are under constant threat from Russian strikes. He and his fellow pilots are not only operating in a dispersed basing mode but are also regularly relocating to avoid detection.
“We are now at an operational airfield. It is already our third [aerodrome] this week. The enemy constantly tries to destroy our equipment,” he said.
One of his most recent missions took place during an attack on the airfield where he was based at the time. “The last combat task took place under shelling—Shaheds, missiles. But fortunately, we managed to take the equipment out and save our lives,” he said.
Despite the exceptionally successful intercept rate, the PSU pilot stressed that his ability to intercept was a key shortfall: the need for longer-range air-to-air missiles. “This aircraft lacks weapons of a longer range—something between efficiency and lower cost, so we can fight the number of enemy air-attack assets we face.”
The pilot also highlighted the critical need to modernize Ukraine’s fighter jet inventory with additional new models as soon as possible. “We need to develop. We need to get more new aircraft, more new weapons, to be able to resist the onslaught of the horde threatening us,” he said.
Dassault Rafale Ready for Action. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
When asked about acquiring future platforms, the PSU pilot said that transitioning to other Western aircraft would be entirely straightforward. Making the jump to the Rafale for him would be pretty straightforward, he said, as Dassault designed both aircraft and therefore they share many, if not all, common systems.
The PSU pilot also pointed out a great advantage of the Rafale would be its capability to fire the Meteor beyond-visual-range ramjet-powered air-to-air missile. Having it in the inventory of available weapons would create a significant tactical advantage, he said.
“If I am offered something like the F-35, Rafale, Gripen, I would gladly, without hesitation, switch to this equipment,” he also stated.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
