Ukraine will not receive F-16 fighter jets before next year, a Ukrainian air force spokesperson has said, as Kyiv's backers still hesitate to take the plunge on providing Ukraine with advanced Western jets.
"It is already obvious that we will not be able to protect Ukraine with F-16 jets this autumn and winter," Ukrainian air force Colonel Yuriy Ihnat said in remarks reported by Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform on Thursday.
Ukraine has long called on its Western supporters to provide fighter jets to supplement its Soviet-era air force. Although Kyiv has received additional Soviet MiG-29 jets from NATO members, Western jets such as the F-16 would be a marked upgrade for the air force, now 18 months into all-out war with Russia's more modern fleet.
In mid-July, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby had suggested F-16s could arrive in Ukraine "probably towards the end of the year."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in early July that training would likely start at some point in August or the first weeks of September, with the jets in Ukraine's skies by March 2024.
"I think that if Ukrainian pilots fly the first F-16s in Ukrainian airspace by the end of the first quarter of next year, then this will be according to the schedule," Kuleba told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Several countries have banded together to provide training programs for Ukrainian fighter pilots on the U.S.'s F-16s, although NATO nations have skirted around precisely when Ukraine would get the jets.
The U.S. has been "working with our European allies in particular to see if we can get that training going as soon as possible," Kirby told the media in a briefing on Wednesday.
But it is not yet known when or where the training will begin, Kirby added.
Sending fighter jets to Ukraine is seen as a longer-term commitment to arming Ukraine than previous military aid packages, and although analysts have increasingly seen the move as inevitable, it is a larger and more expensive undertaking than any other form of military aid provided so far.
"We understand that our pilots will be trained in the near future. But at the same time, our air defense needs to be strengthened," Ihnat said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told European media in an interview in late May that Ukraine would need around 100 Western jets, mostly U.S.-made F-16s. Experts have indicated to Newsweek that Kyiv would need between "dozens" and 100 well-operated jets to make a significant difference to its air force.
But the jets were not expected to help Ukraine with its ongoing counteroffensive, in which Kyiv has looked to roll back Russia's front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine since early June.
In late July, Poland's former defense and foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, told Newsweek that the "right moment" to furnish Ukraine with Western-made fourth-generation jets "was a year ago."
