At the moment, no country has promised Kyiv to supply fighter jets.

This was stated by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview with the German media group Funke.

“So far, no country has committed to supplying fighters,” the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ, part of the Funke group) quoted the minister as saying.

At the same time, he added that “some governments, such as the British, announced the training of Ukrainian pilots” to operate Western aircraft.

According to Kuleba, “other” countries will do it soon.

The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also said that Kyiv needs fighter jets allegedly for a counteroffensive and countering missile attacks from Russia.

“Fighters would maintain their own air defense.

Vehicles can also be used to shoot down enemy missiles.

Secondly, aviation is important for the counteroffensive.

We would be especially interested in fighters from the USA, Great Britain, France and Germany.

These countries have the highest production capacity and the largest aircraft fleets,” he said.

  • Dmitry Kuleba

  • globallookpress.com

Combat aviation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Recall that the topic of deliveries of fighter jets to Kyiv in recent weeks has been actively discussed by Ukrainian and Western politicians.

So, on January 25, Dmitry Kuleba said that the European Union was allegedly considering the issue of providing Ukraine with F-16 fighters.

A few days later, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, actually confirmed this information, saying that Kyiv was negotiating with the leadership of Western countries on the supply of aviation and long-range missiles.

Against this background, in early February, Britain announced that it intended to start training Ukrainian pilots to operate Western-style fighters.

The fact that in the camp of Western states there is a discussion of the possibility of delivering aircraft to Ukraine was also announced at a briefing on February 9 by the head of the press service of the US State Department, Ned Price.

Finally, on February 16, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in which it called on the EU countries to continue and constantly increase the supply "to Ukraine of all types of weapons without exception."

In addition, the document proposes "to seriously consider the issue of supplying Ukraine with Western fighters, helicopters and related missile systems."

Prior to this, the European Parliament has already made a similar call in a resolution adopted on February 2.

The authors of this document welcomed the decision of the United States, Great Britain, Canada and a number of EU countries to transfer Western-made tanks to Kyiv.

The next step, according to European parliamentarians, could be the supply of combat aircraft and long-range missiles.

In February, a group of US senators approached President Joe Biden and US allies with a proposal to begin training Ukrainian pilots to fly modern fighter jets.

At the same time, the issue of supplying fighter jets to Kyiv demonstrates the lack of unanimity among Kyiv's partners: the leaders of Western countries make ambiguous statements on this score.

Thus, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at a press conference in Kyiv after negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his government does not exclude the supply of Swedish-made Jas Gripen fighter jets to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 

  • Jas Gripen Fighters

  • Legion Media

  • © Poolfoto

Warsaw has a different point of view.

The Polish leadership, which, according to analysts, is one of the most active supporters of the Kyiv regime, has actually stated that it will not be able to transfer planes to Ukraine.

In an interview with the BBC on February 11, Polish President Andrzej Duda called the issue of transferring F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine "difficult."

According to him, less than 50 such vehicles are in service with the country, so the transfer of even a small part of them to Kyiv will become a serious problem for Poland.

Later, this information was confirmed by the Polish Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak.

On February 15, on the air of Polish television, he admitted that Warsaw had too few modern fighters to participate in the program to equip the Armed Forces of Ukraine with combat aircraft.

Germany also rejected the idea of ​​supplying fighter jets to Ukraine.

On January 30, Deputy Spokesperson for the German Cabinet Christiane Hofmann said that Berlin does not plan to supply fighter jets to Kyiv and its position on this issue remains unchanged.

Later, on February 14, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius noted that the issue of Germany's deliveries of fighter jets to Ukraine is not currently in the focus of the German government's attention.

In his opinion, it will be possible to return to this problem when the sky over Ukraine becomes safe.

US President Joe Biden at the end of January also rejected Washington's plans to supply Ukraine with F-16 aircraft.

France also does not consider the issue of supplying aircraft to the Kyiv regime.

The official representative of the government of the Fifth Republic, Olivier Veran, said on February 10 on the air of the BFMTV channel that Paris does not supply fighter jets to Kyiv, because it believes that aircraft are "a means of attack, not defense."

According to the French leadership, now it is more important to provide Ukraine with "defense means that would allow it to hold its positions, and maybe move in the opposite direction."

“A very complex and capricious technique”

The Russian leadership believes that the discussion in Western countries of the possibility of supplying fighter jets to Kyiv indicates an increase in the involvement of these states in the Ukrainian conflict.

“We perceive this ... as the growing involvement of Great Britain, Germany, France in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The line between indirect and direct involvement is gradually disappearing... Such actions by the mentioned countries lead to an escalation of tension around this conflict, drag out this conflict, make this conflict more painful and painful for Ukraine, ”said the official representative of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.

  • Dmitry Peskov

  • RIA News

  • © Alexey Nikolsky

At the same time, as Peskov said, the actions of the West "will not change the trajectory along which" Russia is moving in terms of achieving "its goals set as part of a special military operation."

At the same time, according to analysts, in the situation with fighters, the history of deliveries of tanks to Ukraine may be repeated.

Throughout 2022, statements were regularly made in the West that such equipment would not be transferred to Kyiv.

However, then the position of the US and EU countries began to change.

As a result, at the beginning of this year, the United States pledged to supply Ukraine with M1 Abrams tanks, Germany - Leopard, and the UK promised to supply Kyiv with Challenger tanks.

For this reason, experts do not rule out that the leaders of Western states may change their position on the issue of fighters.

At the same time, analysts draw attention to the fact that in the case of the supply of military aircraft, the West may face more difficulties than in the transfer of tanks to Kyiv.

“Fighters are a very complex and capricious technique.

It is much more difficult than the same Leopard tanks.

And the point is not only in the training of pilots, which should take more than one year - we are also talking about the maintenance of this equipment, the supply of its spare parts.

It is completely unclear where these aircraft will be repaired in the current conditions.

A situation may arise when all this will have to be produced on the territory of foreign states, from where fighters will launch to strike.

And this will create a threat of a direct clash between NATO countries and the Russian Federation, ”Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Military-Political Research at the Institute for the US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with RT.

In turn, RISS expert Sergey Ermakov believes that deliveries of Western fighters to Ukraine may begin after the active phase of hostilities.

“Aviation equipment is very expensive, it requires very serious logistics.

In addition, it needs the appropriate infrastructure.

It seems to me that the statements of NATO countries about possible deliveries of aircraft to Ukraine relate more to the period that will come after the end of the active phase of hostilities, ”the expert said in a conversation with RT.

At the same time, Vladimir Batyuk believes that the results of the counteroffensive announced by Kiev may become the decisive factor in the issue of fighters.

“The West does not hide the fact that if Ukraine achieves military success on the battlefield, then many problems with the supply of sophisticated military equipment will be resolved.

And if the situation for Kyiv does not improve, then the Western allies may face the question of why they should supply this equipment to Ukraine.

After all, these weapons may eventually end up in the hands of Russia or will simply be destroyed, but they don’t want this,” Vladimir Batyuk concluded.