OT: Pick a Fighter for Ukraine

[Raellus]

The War Zone article intimates that the Super Etendard donation is more a debt offset/trade balancing act for Argentina than a genuine effort to help Ukraine stand up to Russian aggression. I'm kind of surprised that Ukraine didn't respond, "no thank you", like they reputedly did to alleged US offers of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. As it stands, the Ukrainians don't have enough pilots for their "new" F-16s (and even newer Mirage 2000s, presumably), why would they allocate more time and precious human capital to gearing up to operate an obsolescent combat aircraft system? AFAIK, no one's announced the donation of Exocets to Ukraine. Without those, the Super Etendard has little bite.

I totally agree, though, that Mirage 2000 strike-optimized variants would be a much better fit for Ukraine's need for additional stand-off, precision weapons deployment platforms.

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