US focuses on air capability coalition for Ukraine – Pentagon

The United States Department of Defense has said that Washington continues to work on training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.

Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder was asked about the United States' and its allies' expectations regarding how many Ukrainian pilots will be trained to fly F-16s this summer. 

"So that's really a question that's best addressed by Ukraine. You know, they should be the ones to talk about pilot management in terms of the overall size of their fleet, their overall size of their pilot cadre, and what their expectations are in terms of how they're going to implement that program," he said.

He said that there is a possibility of additional training in other places that are being prepared in Europe.

"Our focus is on working with the air capability coalition to identify what their requirements are and then meeting those requirements. And as you know, training being conducted both in Arizona and in Denmark," Ryder said.

Earlier, MP Oleksandra Ustinova, who heads the parliamentary commission on monitoring arms supplies, said that the United States was deliberately delaying the training of Ukrainian pilots on the F-16.

Earlier, in an interview with European Pravda, Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren said that F-16s would be delivered to Ukraine gradually, and that there would be no immediate effect of the transfer of the aircraft at the front.

On 16 June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Danish F-16s would arrive in Ukraine in the near future.