Ukraine's Mirage 2000 Fighters Need Better Missiles

The short-range Magic 2 isn't cutting it

One Ukrainian air force pilot loves his ex-French Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter. He doesn’t necessarily love its 40-year-old Magic 2 infrared-guided air-to-air missiles.

That’s the main takeaway from a new official video depicting the air force’s Mirage 2000s in action. Ukraine received the first of potentially two dozen or so Mirage 2000-5Fs from French air force surplus stocks back in February.

One crashed in July. The survivors—probably fewer than a dozen have arrived—mainly fly air-defense sorties protecting Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure from Russian attack drones and cruise missiles, if the video is any indication.

The video depicts one Mirage 2000 at one of the many airfields that host small, mobile sections of Ukrainian fighters.

Forty-six months into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force survives by dispersing. Jets and crews don’t linger at the main bases; instead, they fight on the move, constantly relocating between smaller outlying airstrips in order to stay ahead of Russian bombardment. “The enemy constantly tries to destroy our aircraft and equipment,” the pilot says in the video.

The pilot adds that he’s at his third airfield in a week. “Our forward team keeps relocating from site to site.”