Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday that training Ukrainians to operate US F-16 fighter jets has begun, but it will take at least six months and possibly longer.
Reznikov said in a television interview that six months of training is the minimum for pilots, but it is not yet known how long it will take to train engineers and technicians.
As he stated in an interview with Channel 24 presenter Andriana Kutcher, who posted the interview on her YouTube channel, “So, to build reasonable expectations, we consider six months as a minimum, but don’t get discouraged if it takes longer.”
No details of the place or time
Reznikov said that he would not provide details about the place and date of the training, indicating that the training includes technical language training, as the usual basic level of English is not sufficient.
This comes two days after a US official announced that the F-16s will be transferred to Ukraine once their pilots are trained.
US President Joe Biden in May approved a program to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets. A training center will be opened in Romania in addition to their training in Denmark.
Ukraine wants the advanced US-made warplanes so it can counter the air superiority of Russia, whose forces invaded the country in February 2022.
