French Military Promotes Training for Ukrainian Soldiers: Cultivating Talent to Operate Advanced Western Weaponry

Recently, the official account of the French military posted a set of promotional photos on social media platforms.

This set of promotional photos showcases the French military training Ukrainian soldiers, demonstrating that the French military is supporting the Ukrainian armed forces through concrete actions. During the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict, the Ukrainian Air Force lost almost all of its combat capabilities and has maintained its operational capacity by modifying surviving older Soviet-era fighter jets to launch Western-supplied cruise missiles. After providing Ukraine with Mirage fighter jets, France also needs to train Ukrainian pilots to operate this type of Western aircraft.

From the promotional photos released by the French military, it can be seen that Ukrainian pilots are training on the "Alpha Jet" trainer aircraft. As the Russian Aerospace Forces and air defense systems have posed a serious threat to the Ukrainian Air Force, it is difficult to ensure the flight safety of new pilots during training within Ukraine. Moreover, Ukrainian pilots can better master the skills to operate Mirage fighter jets on French jet trainers. Given that Western fighter jets have relatively similar operating methods, Ukrainian pilots trained in France can also relatively easily acquire the skills to operate American fighter jets.

Ukrainian soldiers are learning urban combat skills under the guidance of French Army instructors. Since the Ukrainian military has partially replaced its rifles, they can directly use the French Army's new-generation rifles during training. Before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States had already begun training Ukrainian recruits. In [month and year], the Ukrainian [unit designation] Brigade arrived in France for training, but this unit's performance on the front lines has been less than ideal, raising doubts from external observers.

The French military is also training Ukrainian Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, which is undoubtedly a high-value military specialty. Their main tasks include reconnaissance, identification, and determination of attack targets, planning attack routes for fighter aircraft, guiding pilots to targets, and assessing the effectiveness of attacks after they are carried out. Since the training process requires coordination with various types of fighter aircraft, both the training and equipment involve significant costs. Even the U.S. Air Force has only a limited number of Joint Terminal Attack Controllers.