It may not be easy for Ukraine to get F-16 fighters, as the White House lacks confidence in Ukrainian military expertise, in the expertise of our country's military leadership.

Alyona Hetmanchuk, director of the "New Europe" Center, told about this in an interview with TSN.ua.

"What I fear, and it may happen, is that our partners will prove to us that we do not really need fighter jets, that they do not play a key role. And there have already been such signals. We remember the history, when our Polish partners were ready to hand over their MIGs in exchange for American planes, and then some generals close to the White House joined in, explaining that in fact Ukraine does not need planes," she said.

Hetmanchuk suggests that today, it is quite possible, military experts will also appear who will somehow strengthen the position of the White House, saying that F-16 planes are not what Ukraine needs.

"And today the position of the American government regarding the supply of weapons boils down to the fact that they give us what is really needed, from their point of view, during this very phase of the war, and not what Ukraine wants. And here, in fact, there is a lack confidence in our military expertise, in the military expertise of our military leadership. And I really hope that this approach will change after all, especially since we have already repeatedly demonstrated that the requests we made, which were satisfied by the American side, the weapons that we received as a result of those requests, it really had a serious effect on the battlefield and really led to our victories and the de-occupation of our territories, the liberation of our lands and the liberation of our people who live there," she emphasized.

In addition, Alyona Hetmanchuk emphasized another important point.

She is convinced that the Ukrainian military needs to be trained to operate F-16 fighter jets right now.

"Here, as with tanks: before a political decision should be made public, it is, of course, important to start training. And, for example, the American legislators, Congress, put a certain amount of funds into the budget for the training of our F-16 pilots. That is, it would have been necessary to think about it and train. Just as it was necessary to train on Leopard-2 much earlier, but for some reason everyone is waiting for a political decision to unblock this issue in general, and then train already. And this slows everything down, of course. process," she concluded.

It will be recalled that on January 20, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Wopke Hoekstra, announced that the government will consider the possibility of supplying F-16 fighter jets, if the Ukrainian government requests it.

After that, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak, announced that the F-16 issue was unblocked.

According to him, the USA will not object to the provision of these fighter jets by the Netherlands to Ukraine, but it is still too early to say when and how many modern aircraft will be transferred.

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