PARIS. Dec 22 (Interfax) - The French Ministry of Armed Forces has said that France will begin providing "initial training" for Ukrainian military pilots before they continue training with Kiev's other allies.
"The first pilots will arrive in early 2024," the ministry was quoted by Le Figaro newspaper as saying in a summary document for 2023 regarding support for Ukraine.
In an interview with the TF1 channel on May 15, President Emmanuel Macron unveiled plans to train Ukrainian pilots in cooperation with other European countries and promised that such training would begin soon, the paper said. Seven months on, the practical aspects of this statement are starting to take shape, not least because in July the United States consented to shipments of the F-16 multirole fighter to Ukraine, it said.
NATO began providing F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots in June 2023, Le Figaro said. For its part, France, which does not have this type of aircraft, earlier this year started training Ukrainian "military aviation personnel," but not pilots, to operate its Mirage 2000 fighters, Le Figaro said.
France's standard initial pilot training involving both theory and practice should be provided at the Air Force's base 701 in the town of Salon-de-Provence, which hosts the CFAM center for initial military aviation training.
As a rule, the training then continues in the city of Cognac, where cadets fly training aircraft.
Such training is intended for Ukrainian pilots with no fighter aircraft experience, the French newspaper said. They include civil aviation pilots who have decided to retrain for military action. Currently, they need military skills such as patrolling, low-altitude flights, using radar equipment, and so on, the French side said.
Training with F-16s will be provided to Ukrainian fighter pilots, because they already know the rules for aerial engagements and have other military piloting skills.
Those who complete the initial training will subsequently undergo F-16 training, including at the Fetesti Air Base in Romania, which will house an international training center at the beginning of 2024.