Poland Cannot Provide Ukraine with F-16 Fighters but Ready to Transfer MiG-29 – Duda
Poland is ready to continue to transfer MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine but is not ready to give the F-16s, as the country does not have so many of them.
"We have a relatively very small number of F-16 aircraft. We are ready to support training Ukrainian pilots – I discussed this with the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence some time ago. However, the number of F-16 aircraft we have does not allow us to talk about transferring some of them to Ukraine today," wPolityce quotes Andrzej Duda, the President of Poland.
At the same time, Duda assured that he was ready for the further transfer of MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine.
On 17 May, following the results of a meeting on the sidelines of the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik, prime ministers of the UK and the Netherlands agreed to lead a "coalition of fighter jets" to provide Ukraine with the F-16s.
In an evening address on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Britain, the Netherlands, and France had joined the so-called "fighter coalition."
On 15 May, it became known that the UK agreed to begin training Ukrainian pilots this summer and is already working with other countries on the possible provision of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.