According to him, it will take at least “several months” before Ukraine can operate the F-16. And also it is necessary to work out a number of details before the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can use Western aircraft in large numbers.
“Under no circumstances are we going to transfer F-16s or other Western fighters in significant numbers into the hands of the Ukrainian Air Force in less than a few months,” Kendall said.
At the same time, the Secretary of the Air Force, in a conversation with journalists from the Defense Writers Group, noted that this is still a relatively short time, since it usually takes more than 2 years to train a new American pilot to work with such an aircraft. Even a refresher course for an F-16 pilot who hasn’t flown in a while can take up to 5 months.
It is worth noting that the U.S. has been publicly arguing for months that fighter jets are not high on its priority list and will quickly drain available funding to help Ukraine in place of more important weapons such as Abrams tanks and Patriot missiles.
Kendall called the sudden turnaround in the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden a decision that it was time to start preparing the Ukrainian military for the future.
“Ukraine will remain an independent state. It will need a full range of military capabilities to meet its requirements, and so it’s time to start thinking about what this Armed Forces might look like and what it will include in the long term,” he said.
F-16 for Ukraine
Ukraine has repeatedly emphasized the importance of obtaining modern Western-made fighters for effective protection against Russian attacks, arguing that it is impossible to fully protect the sky from Russian strikes only with the help of air defense systems, and asked the allies to provide it with such aircraft.
In this context, Ukrainian officials most often spoke of such a massive fourth-generation aircraft as the F-16, which is capable of blocking our skies from enemy aircraft. Western fighter equipment allows you to remotely eliminate enemy targets.
The other day, at the G7 summit in Japanese Hiroshima, US President Joe Biden announced his support for training Ukrainian pilots to operate the F-16.
In addition to the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the United States, Great Britain, Denmark and other countries intend to take part in training on fighter jets.
Meanwhile, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that Ukrainian pilots had already begun training on F-16 fighter jets.
2023-05-23 01:47:50
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