Monitoring Desk
LONDON: Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak‘s Downing Street office said Wednesday that the United Kingdom (UK) would explore the possibility of sending fighter jets to Ukraine, adding it would only be a “long-term” solution.
“The prime minister has assigned the defence secretary with investigating what fighter jets we might be able to give but, to be clear; this is a long-term solution rather than a short-term capability, which is what Ukraine requires most now,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
The announcement came shortly after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky met Rishi Sunak and urged the United Kingdom politicians to send fighter jets to his war-torn country during a visit to London.
UK PM’s office says training Ukraine pilots a long process
Rishi Sunak’s office warned that training Ukraine pilots to use state-of-the-art British fighter jets would be a long process.
“We are keen to do whatever we can to train these pilots as quickly as possible,” the spokesman said.
“But these are complex pieces of military equipment, and the current training period for the United Kingdom pilots is about five years,” he added.
