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Giving F-16s to Ukraine would be difficult due to long training — Polish top brass

Marcin Ociepa stressed that currently the issue of giving F-16s to Ukraine is not being discussed

Polish F-16 fighter jet Omar Marques/Getty Images

Polish F-16 fighter jet

© Omar Marques/Getty Images

WARSAW, February 1. /TASS/. The potential handover of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine would be a difficult task due to the lengthy training involved, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Marcin Ociepa told Telewizja Polska on Wednesday.

"These are not automatic rifles that you can simply hand to someone," he said.

Replying to a question as to how long the F-16 training lasts, the military official said that this process takes "many months." "If compressed then, I think, maybe six months. But this is in urgent situations. Under regular circumstances, it is much longer. Additionally, infrastructure and logistics are needed. Because of all of this, this operation would be complicated," he noted.

Ociepa stressed that currently the issue of giving F-16s to Ukraine is not being discussed. "There is no political decision and there is nothing to comment on," he stated.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden said that Washington would not supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. On Tuesday, Poland’s Deputy Defense Minister Wojciech Skurkiewicz said that the issue of a possible handover of F-16 warplanes of the Polish Air Force to Ukraine is not a subject of any discussion at the official level. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also emphasized that his country considered it inexpedient to supply Kiev with fighter jets at this time. Recently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius repeatedly stated that Germany was not going to deliver fighter jets to Kiev.

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Ukraine crisis Poland

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