USA to Commence Training Ukrainian F-16 Pilots

  The United States announced that it will soon begin training Ukrainian pilots to operate F-16 combat aircraft as Washington and its allies compete to supply Kyiv with American supersonic planes. "These pilots will undergo English training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, in September before participating in F-16 flight training in Arizona the following month," stated Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder on Thursday. The training will involve "several" pilots and "dozens" of personnel for aircraft maintenance, he added. Last week, the United States informed Denmark and the Netherlands that they could transfer their F-16s to Ukraine once the country's pilots were trained to operate these aircraft. Over the past weekend, Copenhagen and The Hague announced their intention to provide several F-16 combat aircraft to Ukraine. Six of the promised jets are set to be delivered around the New Year.

Also on Thursday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store announced that Oslo would join the ranks of countries set to deliver single-engine aircraft to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been working for months to secure the combat aircraft. The former Soviet republic considers the F-16 combat planes crucial to the success of its efforts against Russia, which has been engaged in a conflict with its neighbor since last February. Moscow stated that it initiated the war to protect the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk from persecution by Kyiv and to "de-Nazify" the neighbor. Russia contends that Western anti-Russian plans, including the desire to incorporate Ukraine into NATO – thereby expanding the Western military alliance to Russia's borders – forced Moscow to initiate the war against Kyiv.