The UK and the Netherlands have agreed to form a coalition to purchase fighter jets for Ukraine, according to a statement on the website of the British government (RBC May 17).
The statement said the two prime ministers, Rishi Sunak and Mark Rutte, “will work to build an international coalition to provide Ukraine with combat aviation capabilities, supporting it in everything from training to the purchase of F-16s.
The decision was made at a meeting on the sidelines of the Council of Europe summit in Iceland. On the eve of the meeting of the heads of the British and Dutch governments, Rishi Sunak met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After the talks, Zelenskyy said that now Kyiv “cannot control the sky” and announced important decisions regarding this issue in the near future, The Guardian reports.
According to RBC, Sunak promised that Britain would help Ukraine with pilot training and logistics for supplies. He noted that over the past nine years, the kingdom has trained 37,000 Ukrainian servicemen, and in the summer it will start training pilots in case the F-16s are provided.
