President Joe Biden informed his fellow G7 leaders on Friday that the US will ultimately support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth generation aircraft, including F-16 jets.
The training is not expected to happen in the US but in Europe. However, US personnel will participate in the training alongside allies and partners. It is expected to take a few months to complete; the hope is it will begin “in the coming weeks.”
The decision marks a massive turnaround for Biden. He said earlier this year that he did not believe that Ukraine needed the F-16s. The reversal was decided on by Biden following meetings with G7 leaders in Hiroshima, Japan. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been pushing particularly hard for countries that have the jets in their stockpile to send them to Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is at the G7 meeting, tweeted to say he welcomed “the historic decision of the United States and @POTUS to support an international fighter jet coalition.”
“This will greatly enhance our army in the sky. I count on discussing the practical implementation of this decision at the #G7 summit in Hiroshima,” Zelensky added.
In March, the US hosted two Ukrainian pilots at an Arizona military base to evaluate their skills to assess how much time they would need to learn to fly various US military aircraft like F-16s.
CNN also reported on Thursday that the Biden administration has signaled that the US would allow them to export F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The White House has come under increasing pressure to help bolster Ukraine’s air force amid intensifying Russian aerial attacks.The US would have to approve that third-party transfer because of the jets’ sensitive technology.
