Le Monde: Ukraine Already Received Almost 70 F-16 Fighters

The power of Ukrainian aviation has increased sharply.

For six months, about ten servicemen from Ukraine will undergo training in the Royal Air Force of Great Britain, where they will be taught the basics of navigation and piloting F-16 fighters, as well as the basics of the English language as part of the Interstorm program. Ukraine has already received almost 70 such aircraft from its partners.

Le Monde writes about this.

It is noted that they are the fourth group of Ukrainian servicemen who will undergo training in the Royal Air Force as part of the Interstorm program — an international program launched in early 2023 by the British and the Dutch and organized at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023, with the goal of teaching Ukrainians to fly American F-16 fighters.

The Belgians, Danes, Romanians, Americans, French and Portuguese are also participating. Since the British do not have their own F-16s, they took on the first stage of training: teaching the Ukrainian pilots the basics of navigation and piloting combat aircraft, as well as English language training.

Le Monde and four other European media outlets spoke to the student pilots without naming them for security reasons.

“These young men were selected by the Ukrainian army after four years of training at the Air Force Academy and have already flown a little on Soviet-type aircraft (L-39s of Czech manufacture). For six months in the UK, they undergo additional theoretical training to familiarize themselves with NATO-specific piloting and air traffic control standards. Their training also includes intensive English courses and sixty hours of flying on a Grob Tutor aircraft,” the newspaper writes.

Their training lasts a total of eighteen months — almost a year less than traditional F-16 pilot training, which typically lasts between two and a half and three years.

“The idea is obviously to prepare young pilots for combat as soon as possible, as Ukraine has received almost 70 F-16s (from Denmark, the Netherlands and Greece),” the journalists note.

Ukrainian student pilots say they are ready to defend their country: “When you see videos of what the Russians do to our people, it drives you crazy. We must protect our nation, our land and our culture.”

“F-16s will allow us to hunt enemy aircraft more effectively, they have a better radar and will stop long-range missiles. Our big problem is missiles and drones that attack our power plants and infrastructure. F-16s will provide better protection for our borders, but it will not be enough to win the war,” said one of the Ukrainians, named Ivan.

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