Ukraine’s Air Force Set To Receive F-16s After Completing Training
The Ukrainian Air Force will be receiving at least 42 F-16s from the Netherlands and Denmark, once Ukrainian pilots and ground crew complete training on the aircraft.
The announcement was made following a Sunday meeting between Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at Eindhoven Air Base. During the visit, Zelensky was given a tour of the air base, including F-16s stationed there.
Following the meeting, Zelensky posted on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, that the 42 F-16s pledged by the Netherlands were “just the beginning”. In a joint statement the Netherlands and Denmark did not specify numbers of aircraft.
Following a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen later that day, it was announced that Denmark would be supplying 19 F-16s.
The pledge to deliver the F-16s follows confirmations on Friday by the Dutch and Danish governments that they had received authorization to supply F-16s to Ukraine. Those confirmations were made following a report by Politico that United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken had sent letters earlier that week to both governments, assuring them that Washington would quickly approve the formal transfer process of their F-16s to Ukraine once Ukrainian crews are trained.
A day prior to the meeting, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that Ukrainian pilot and ground crew on the F-16 had “already begun” during an interview on Channel 24. He told the Ukrainian television channel that training a first batch of pilots would take at least six months, while training maintainers and other support staff could take longer.
While the Netherlands and Denmark are leading a 11-nation coalition formed during the July Vilnius NATO summit to train Ukrainian F-16 pilots and support crew, the coalition’s public progress towards creating a training plan has been slow. On August 16, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Col. Yurii Ihnat told the United24 news telethon that “it is already obvious that we will not be able to defend Ukraine with F-16s this fall and winter” despite how efforts to create a training plan had “moved forward”.