According to information provided to the journalist at the Élysée Palace, a briefing with industry representatives is scheduled for the morning of November 17 during a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky, after which a letter of intent is expected to be signed.

The Élysée claims that the briefing will cover Rafale aircraft and their weapons systems, the long-range SAMP/T NG air defense system with Aster 30 B1 NT missiles, capable of intercepting medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges of up to 1,500 km, as well as GF300 radars and drone systems.

As Merchet notes, a Rafale delivery could indeed be significant enough to merit the term “historic.” The question, however, is in what form.

Well, gotta wait a day to see what presents you are getting Ukraine… I do find it interesting how little media coverage the delivery of Mirage 2000-5F to Ukraine have gotten though, the amount seems quite significant and in terms of air defense and glide bomb launching capability they seem like they would be capable enough. Their main disadvantage appears to be a limited ability to conduct deep strike missions as they already carry large external fuel pods for routine missions, but at this moment of the war I am not sure that is a priority for Ukraine?

At any rate the delivery of a significant amount of Mirage 2000-5F aircraft at the minimum demonstrates a commitment to obtaining an indepth jet trainer capability and makes negotiations around obtaining Rafales or other more modern fighter aircraft a lot more realistic. I will be curious to see what the specifics of this entail when they are announced.