U.S. to support joint F-16 training effort for Ukrainian pilots

The United States will allow its allies in Europe to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets.

President Joe Biden informed G7 leaders that the US will support a joint effort with allies and partners to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s, CNN writes with reference to a senior administration official.

The training is expected to happen entirely in Europe, but US personnel will participate in the training. It is expected to take several months to complete.

“As the training takes place over the coming months, our coalition of countries participating in this effort will decide when to actually provide jets, how many we will provide, and who will provide them,” the official said.

However, as the journalists noted, so far no request has been received from the allies to the White House for the transfer of aircraft to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and United States Department of State officials – who will be involved in the authorization process – have not yet received instructions to start work.

Previously, in a comment to Politico, a Pentagon official said that the US would not object to the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by third countries.

As previously reported, after the meeting in Reykjavik, the Prime Ministers of the UK and the Netherlands announced that they would lead an international “aviation” coalition for Ukraine.

London also promised to start training Ukrainian pilots to fly Western aircraft.

Yuriy Sak, Advisor to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, stated that the Armed Forces of Ukraine needed 40 to 50 F-16 aircraft to form three to four squadrons to protect the sky from Russian attacks.

The United States has conducted training tests in flying F-16 fighter jets for Ukrainian pilots.

It will take only 4 months to train Ukrainian pilots to fly American F-16 fighter jets.

The tests involved two Ukrainian pilots, one qualified for the MiG-29 and the other for the Su-27, who had no formal training with the F-16, except for a brief familiarization.