re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Ukrainian officials are pressing the U.S. and other countries to ramp up their F-16 pilot training, saying the current pipeline isn’t producing enough aviators to fly the jets that will be soon donated to Kyiv.

Ukraine says it has 30 pilots who are eligible to start training in the U.S. immediately. Yet the Biden administration has told Kyiv it lacks the school seats in its Arizona-based program to accept more than 12 pilot trainees at a time, according to three people with direct knowledge of the request. Two other facilities in Denmark and Romania have a similar issue with available training spots.

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Ukrainians argue that the ability to fly more F-16s will help Kyiv push back Russian forces from the frontlines in places such as Kharkiv, where Moscow has advanced in recent weeks. Yet the U.S. has said it does not expect the jets to be a game-changer on the battlefield.

This story is based on interviews with eight former and current U.S., Ukrainian and European officials and lawmakers, many of whom were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive diplomatic conversations.

In a series of meetings and calls over the last several weeks, Ukraine has officially requested the U.S. train the additional pilots at Morris Air National Guard base in Tucson, Arizona. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, have also pressed the administration to approve the additional training. The pair, along with several other lawmakers, wrote the Pentagon a letter last month asking the administration to prioritize the issue.

But the U.S. has told the Ukrainian military that in addition to limited space, other countries are in line for F-16 training at the base and that it cannot break its commitments to those nations.

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The National Guard is planning to train 12 Ukrainian pilots total by the end of September at the Tucson location, according to Air Force spokesperson Laurel Falls. Aside from Arizona, the training facility in Denmark also has limited space and is preparing to shutter in November. A third program, which is located in Romania and will be run by contractors, is not yet up and running.

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Another eight Ukrainian pilots are being trained in Denmark, according to a former DOD official involved in the program. But that facility is set to close next year and will no longer participate in the training, as Denmark’s Air Force transitions to the stealthy F-35.

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A total of 20 Ukrainian F-16 pilots are expected to graduate by the end of this year — half of the 40 needed to operate a full squadron of 20 jets, according to the former DOD official. Eight new pilots are scheduled to begin training in Romania, and eight more will soon arrive in Tucson, the former official said. The facility in Denmark will not accept any additional pilots.

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Ukrainians plan to use the jets to knock down Russian cruise and ballistic missiles fired toward Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets.

Those missions require precise air-to-air missiles that belong to the U.S. and dozens of NATO allies. Many of those countries are hesitant to part with their expensive weapons, one NATO official said.

The production capacity for the AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, made by RTX, has increased from around 500-800 per year to over 1,000, company officials said last year, in order to keep with demand. Ukraine has already used an older version of the missile with the ground-based National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System to hit Russian missiles.

But the worry from capitals is that the new requests from Kyiv could begin to put a strain on countries’ stocks, and talks among alliance members are looking at who might be able to part with their missiles, and how many, and when, the official said.

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