Ukraine to Keep Some F-16s Abroad

Ukraine will deploy its reserve F-16 fighter jets at air bases of allied countries.

Serhii Holubotsov, Chief of Aviation of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, told about this in his interview with Radio Svoboda.

He noted that this will be done to prevent Russian missiles from hitting Ukrainian F-16s.

“There are a certain number of aircraft that will be stored at secure air bases outside of Ukraine so that they are not targeted here,” stated Serhii Holubtsov.

These F-16 fighter jets will become the Ukrainian Air Force’s reserve, if necessary, to replace faulty aircraft during routine maintenance.

The decision is also related to the insufficient number of trained F-16 pilots.

“That is, to ensure that we can always have a certain number of aircraft in the operational fleet, which will correspond to the number of pilots we will have,” added Serhii Holubtsov.

Ukraine has already prepared a number of airfields for American fighter jets.

“With each conference of the Aviation Coalition members, we get more positive forecasts, more realistic figures, more information that allows us to make this process systematic,” said Serhii Holubtsov.

As previously reported, Ukrainian officials are requesting the U.S. to accept more Ukrainian pilots for F-16 pilot training.

U.S. informed Ukraine that, in addition to limited space, other countries are in line for F-16 training at the base and that it cannot break its commitments to those nations.

According to the Air Force spokesperson, the National Guard is planning to train a total of 12 Ukrainian pilots at the Tucson location by the end of September.