WASHINGTON, January 9. /TASS/. The United States, its allies and partners plan to continue training more Ukrainian pilots for combat use of American F-16 fighter jets, Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said at a regular briefing.
"On the F-16 program, <...> we've been co-leading the [international] Air Capability Coalition. We have trained a handful of Ukrainian pilots. You know that the training has been here in the United States, but of course other countries have taken Ukrainian pilots and continue to train them. I'm not going to get into specific numbers right now, but I think you're certainly well-versed in all the training. And you know, the Air Capability Coalition is still working to train more additional pilots when ready," Singh said.
Earlier, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Sergey Melnyk said that the training period for Ukrainian pilots on US F-16 fighter jets has been reduced by three months. Zelensky informed that the second batch of F-16 jets arrived in Ukraine from Denmark. He did not specify exactly how many fighter jets were sent. In November 2024, the Danish authorities said that six F-16 fighter jets had been handed over to Ukraine and that 13 more planes were planned to be delivered.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier emphasized that the F-16 jets would not influence the course of hostilities and would be consistently destroyed by the Russian armed forces.