US to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s this October in Arizona

U.S. military personnel will train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Ariz., in October, according to the Pentagon’s top spokesperson. 

Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said the pilots will first receive English instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, next month in an effort to boost their fluency to the level needed to fly the planes. 

The announcement is the biggest step forward yet in the international effort to train Ukrainian pilots on Western-supplied fifth-generation fighters. 

It also comes a day after President Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Ukraine’s Independence Day to assure his counterpart of continued support from Washington in Kyiv’s fight against Moscow. 

In a statement from the White House, Biden told Zelensky that the U.S. had sped up approval for other countries to transfer their F-16s to Ukraine at the end of the pilot training. 

Pentagon officials have said it would take years before Ukrainian pilots would be able to fly advanced fighters in defense of their country against Russia, a sentiment Ryder expressed Thursday.

“This is about the long-term support to Ukraine,“ Ryder told reporters. “This is not about the counteroffensive that they’re conducting right now.”

Ukraine has long asked for more advanced fighter jets to defend against attacks from the Kremlin. 

Recently, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway announced that they would give such planes to the embattled country. 

Ryder said that Washington had agreed to join in on the training to speed up the process, with “several” Ukrainian fighter pilots and “dozens of maintainers” to revive the teachings. 

He said the training is expected to take around five months for those with flight experience, though it’s too soon to tell how that timeline will play out. 

“A lot is going to depend on those individual pilots and the assessment in terms of where they’re at in that process,” Ryder said.