WASHINGTON, February 13./TASS/. The White House is not at this point ready to say when Ukrainian pilots will complete F-16 training, US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told a briefing.

A journalist asked him to specify when the training of Ukrainian pilots will be completed, as well as to explain the situation with the dispatch of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. "You'd have to talk to the Department of Defense on that. I don't have that information," Kirby said.

He was responding to statements from General Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau. Last week, speaking about the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16’s, he said "we do have the resources to continuing the training that's already started."

"So we'd be able to continue the training and hopefully get all those folks completed later on this year, and then if we decide to increase that, obviously, we'll need the resources to train additional pilots and —and ground support personnel," the general said.

At the end of January, Air & Space Forces Magazine quoted a Pentagon source as saying that four Ukrainian pilots were being trained for combat use of F-16 fighter jets in the US state of Arizona.

Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander said that the West expects to transfer the first F-16 fighter-bombers and equipment for their maintenance to Ukraine this year. Speaking at a briefing following a regular meeting of the contact group set up by the West to coordinate the delivery of weapons and military equipment to Kiev, she noted that the program for training Ukrainian pilots to operate F-16s was going as planned.