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Peter Dejong/AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Dutch caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte in front of an F-16 fighter jet in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, on Sunday.
CNN
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The Netherlands and Denmark will provide Ukraine with much sought-after F-16 aircraft in an agreement hailed by President Volodymyr Zelensky as “historic.”
Kyiv has urgently been calling on its Western allies to provide F-16 jets, as its slow-moving counteroffensive is hampered by Russian air superiority.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Zelensky at Eindhoven airport, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his country would “commit to delivering F-16 aircraft to Ukraine” once “the conditions for such a transfer have been met.”
Zelensky hailed the agreement as “historic” and “the most important” one yet. “The Netherlands became the first country to agree to provide Ukraine with F-16s after training. I am very grateful,” he added.
Even with the news it will take months until Ukraine will be able to use the jets.
The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in a statement published Sunday it had agreed to provide F-16s. Conditions for the transfer include training Ukrainian personnel, setting up infrastructure and logistics, and receiving the necessary authorization, it said.
The Danish statement did not specify how many jets the countries would deliver to Ukraine, and Rutte said the number remained unclear.
Ksenia Kuleshova/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Volodymyr Zelenskiy shakes hands with Mark Rutte.
“At this moment, the Netherlands still owns 42 F-16s. Out of these 42, we need planes to help training in Denmark and later on in Romania,” Rutte said. He added that the Netherlands would look into whether all of the remaining planes could be supplied but stated that he could not yet give a definitive number.
Rutte said that language training for Ukrainian service personnel was ongoing and military training in Denmark would begin soon.
Zelensky traveled to Denmark on Sunday, hours after the announcement was made. The Ukrainian leader said he would meet with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the Royal Family, members of the Danish parliament and business leaders.
It comes after a US official on Friday said the US had committed to approving the transfer of F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine as soon as training is complete.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov confirmed on Saturday that Ukrainian pilots had begun training.
F-16s are single-engine, multirole jet aircraft, meaning they can be used in air-to-air or ground-attack missions.
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