Paris will supply Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets in Ukraine, the president announced Emmanuel Macron in an interview he gave today Thursday to French television networks. France will train the pilots, while the fighters will be able to attack military installations on Russian soil.

“Tomorrow (Friday) we will start a new partnership and announce the supply of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine manufactured by the French manufacturer Dassault and we will train their Ukrainian pilots in France,” Macron said in an interview with French TV.

The French president also announced that Paris will also train 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers, assuring viewers that there are “currently” no French military trainers on Ukrainian soil. “We also want to train a brigade,” he said.

“We are providing Mirage 2000-5 aircraft for the protection of Ukraine’s soil and airspace. Pilot training begins this summer, with (fighter) deliveries by the end of the year. Our goal is to help Ukraine resist, not to escalate the war. We are building a coalition for peace,” he remarked. However, he emphasized that “peace…will only be achieved if Ukraine can resist.”

“The situation is difficult,” the French president admitted, adding that the Russian army had managed “heavy blows” in the Kharkiv region.

“Peace cannot mean capitulation of Ukraine,” he clarified. “Peace must come through negotiations.” This moment, he estimates, has not yet arrived “as Russia continues to advance.”

The Mirage 2000s (the Mirage 2000-5 version is the most modern) are single-engine, multi-role, fourth-generation combat aircraft. Specialized from the start in all-weather interception, the Mirage 2000 is one of the most capable fighters in the world with high maneuverability in dogfights with enemy aircraft. In its secondary role of attacking ground targets, the Mirage 2000 carries missiles, rockets and laser-guided missiles. There is also the two-seater model of the aircraft, the 2000N (penetrator), which is capable of launching nuclear weapons.

France and her allies we are the side of Ukraine, the French president pointed out earlier during the ceremony to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, in the presence of leaders of the international community.

“We are here and we will not weaken,” Macron said in his speech, attended by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelesny and his wife.

The American president Joe Biden at another ceremony marking the Normandy landings he said that Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, had been invaded by a “tyrant intent on domination” and that democracy was more at risk than at any time since World War II .

The Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg announced earlier Thursday that the military alliance does not plan to send troops to Ukraine, and that Moscow is not an “immediate” threat to Western countries, despite the war preparations of countries such as Germany.

“NATO does not plan to deploy forces in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said during a visit to Finland, where he held a joint press conference with the Finnish president Alexander Stubb.