The UK and the Netherlands have vowed to create an international “fighter jet coalition,” following President Zelensky’s diplomacy tour of Western Europe to help Kyiv procure F-16s and other aircraft. France and Belgium have promised to train Ukrainian pilots, however, no aircraft has been pledged so far.
The deal was announced on Tuesday, May 16th, after President Zelensky met with British and Dutch prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Mark Rutte. The leaders “agreed they would work to build [an] international coalition to provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting with everything from training to procuring F-16 jets,” Downing Street said.
According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, addressing the nation on Wednesday, May 17th, the “fighter jet coalition” is expected to be formed later this year. Once the coalition is formed, Kuleba said, “everything will happen very quickly.”
So far, Ukraine has received 14 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland and 13 from Slovakia, but Kyiv has its eyes on more modern equipment to deploy against Russia, particularly the American-made Lockheed Martin F-16s, currently used by over 20 nations.
Nonetheless, all other fighter types are welcome to support the Ukrainian war effort. “Our priority is the F-16, but we are not cancelling other aircraft options. It’s like with tanks,” Kuleba added in his address.
At the beginning of his tour, President Zelensky spent an evening with President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Sunday, May 14th, where the French head of state also agreed to train Ukrainian fighter jet pilots, starting as soon as possible. Belgium has also “confirmed its readiness to train” pilots, but like France, it has said nothing about giving some of its F-16s to Ukraine.
The United Kingdom, which does not have any F-16s in its fleet, will work instead on lobbying others who do. The country will also begin its own training program for Ukrainian pilots this summer, Sunak reiterated, while also promising a new package of long-range drones in the coming months.
Regarding the “fighter jet coalition,” the Netherlands and the UK hope that more countries will join them in the near future, both in Europe and outside, lobbying for it at both the Council of Europe (CoE) Summit in Reykjavik that ended on Wednesday, May 17th, and at the upcoming G7 Summit in Japan over the weekend.
Sunak even hinted that negotiations with others are already underway, saying:
Other countries are involved. I’m talking to those leaders. I’ll be doing more of that this week in my international engagements. We’re very keen to build that coalition of countries to give Volodymyr and his people the aircraft support they need.
At the CoE Summit in Reykjavik, Ukraine received several other reassurances from European nations. As Yuriy Sak, an adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, said: even though Britain, Italy, France, and Germany have no F-16s to offer Ukraine, “they have an important voice in the international coalition,” in “encouraging” allies like the U.S., Turkey, Belgium and Denmark not only to join but to provide the much-needed aircraft.
But despite the hopes of Kyiv, Germany already cut the discussion short when Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Berlin will not participate in the coalition, but instead will focus on continuing to deliver tanks, ammunition, and other equipment, as reported by Euractiv on Thursday, May 18th. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also reiterated the chancellor’s position, saying that “[Germany] cannot play an active role in such an alliance, in such a coalition, because we have neither the training capacities, the competencies, or the planes.”
According to Sak, Ukraine needs between 40 to 50 F-16s in total, meaning three or four squadrons to patrol Ukrainian airspace and defend it from aerial bombardment. “Nobody said that it’s impossible,” Sak added. “If you compared it with three months ago, when we were still struggling to get tanks, today everybody is talking about the jet coalition—that’s a very promising sign.”
In Europe, only eight countries have the much sought-after F-16s—Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Romania—while Bulgaria and Slovakia are both looking to procure eight and twelve aircraft respectively in the near future. Older variants of the F-16 cost between $18 and $36 million apiece, while the most advanced model can go for up to $64 million.
