President Emmanuel Macron and French officials over July 13-14 announced an arms assistance package for the transfer of advanced fighter jets, anti-aircraft systems, cruise missiles, precision-guided bombs and interceptor missiles to Ukraine in an agreement for long-term bilateral military cooperation almost unprecedented in modern French history. Ukraine cooperates closely with several allied states in military procurement, most visibly in sea drones with Great Britain, in artillery systems with Denmark, in artillery shells and armored vehicles with Germany, and in fighter jets via a Norway-Netherlands-Denmark coalition. However, with a few minor exceptions, none of those countries has committed to helping Ukraine field cutting-edge, big ticket weaponry, even less to produce and upgrade it in Ukraine.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The F-16 fighters now operated by Ukraine’s air force, for example, are on average 30 years old and were considered obsolete by the states that donated them. The French commitment to arm Ukraine with France’s very best weaponry, and to help Ukraine manufacture it as well, is for Kyiv the first-ever, full-on commitment by an allied state to arm the AFU with major, big-ticket weapons systems and to operate and upgrade them as an allied state over the long term. For France the strategic ambition of the Ukrainian package is only roughly comparable to a 2016 $7-8 billion deal with India for the transfer of 36 Rafale fighter jets, but in that deal plans for long-term manufacturing in India fell through.