At a press briefing for foreign journalists, British Deputy Secretary of Defense James Hippie said that London was not ready to begin deliveries of fighter jets to Kyiv
“It would take a fraction of a second to make a decision, but, of course, the reality is that the transfer of fighters is a huge undertaking,” Hippie was quoted by the Anadolu agency’s English-language portal.
As the Deputy Minister of Defense of the United Kingdom explained, “you can’t just transfer third and fourth generation fighters to engineers who do not have experience working with them, expecting that they will make more than one sortie.”
“Obviously, everything is not at all easy here… To service the combat aircraft directly on the ground, at the airfield, a significant amount of professional knowledge is required, and this implies sending competent people to Ukraine from countries providing fighters. After all, you will need to help serve them”, added Hippie.
“The right approach”
Earlier, the Minister of Defense of the United Kingdom, Ben Wallace, and the Prime Minister of the country, Rishi Sunak, announced that London was not ready to start supplying combat aircraft.
At the same time, Wallace stressed that this decision is not “unconditional”, but at the moment London has chosen the “right approach”.
“This is not an absolute decision. At the moment, I don’t think this is the right approach… What will allow progress in this conflict this year is the ability of the Ukrainians to use Western armor against Russia,” Wallace said.
In turn, Sunak pointed out the difficulties in mastering the British aircraft of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“British… fighters are extremely complex and take months to learn to fly. With this in mind, we consider it impractical to send these fighters to Ukraine,” the Prime Minister said.
Recall that the UK was the first country to supply Kyiv with Western manned aircraft. In January, London handed over multi-purpose Sea King helicopters to Ukrainian troops. Kiev intends to use these machines in the Black Sea.
At the same time, London is in no hurry to export other manned aircraft to Ukraine, but it is pushing NATO allies to this step.
So, speaking late last week on Sky News, Rishi Sunak said that the kingdom is ready to support countries that can provide Ukraine with fighter jets “now.”
“For our part, we occupy a leading position in the world in training Ukrainian pilots to handle NATO standard aircraft. This is right, because the point is to give the Ukrainians the means to defend themselves and win,” Sunak said.
Earlier at the Munich Security Conference, the British Prime Minister noted that London intends to make a commitment to train Ukrainian pilots “to handle the most advanced fighters.”
As the media suggest, the UK may train Ukrainian pilots to fly Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. There are fifth-generation F-35B combat vehicles in the UK fleet, but they are more expensive and are considered difficult to maintain and manage.
On February 9, the website of the British television channel Sky News published an article critical of the UK’s ability to help Ukraine with aircraft.
According to journalists, in principle, there are not so many planes in the park of the kingdom. The most suitable option for Kyiv could be the Tornado GR.4, but it was withdrawn from the Air Force four years ago in order to save budget funds.
In an interview with RT, Candidate of Military Sciences Alexander Bartosh drew attention to the fact that the United Kingdom currently has a very modest military aviation fleet, and therefore is unable to provide significant assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“U.K. has a limited number of aircraft and they need them for their own national security. In addition, London does not produce fighter jets on its own. Typhoon and F-35B are products of cooperation with NATO allies,” Bartosz explained.
However, Kiev expects that the UK will be the first state to transfer fighter jets to the Ukrainian Air Force. On February 22, the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, wrote about such a possibility in his Telegram channel.
“I do not rule out that the UK may become the first country to unblock the supply of fighter jets to Ukraine. There are other issues that need to be agreed upon. We are working,” Yermak said.
It should be noted that the transfer of combat aircraft to Kyiv has become one of the central topics of the recent visit to London by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Speaking before the British Parliament, he called on the United Kingdom and other countries to send this aircraft to Ukraine.
“I am addressing you and the world with simple but very important words. Combat aircraft – for Ukraine! Wings for freedom!” Zelensky said.
Speaking to the press at the Bovington Camp military base after talks with Rishi Sunak, Zelensky said that he “heard” from the British Prime Minister “the desire to provide us with aircraft.”
In turn, Sunak noted that a positive solution to this issue should be preceded by a long period of pilot training. According to the Prime Minister, it takes three years.
“Unable to operate normally”
According to experts interviewed by RT, in London, at least at the moment, they are quite soberly assessing the prospects for the possible supply of combat aircraft to the Kyiv regime.
“In my opinion, the Hippie clearly explained what the difficulties are and what the British are afraid of. To prepare Ukraine for the independent operation of Western aircraft is a long and laborious process. Moreover, London does not see much enthusiasm in other Western countries and is not going to do it alone,” says Alexander Bartosh.
Along with this, London excludes the deployment of aircraft transferred to Kiev in Poland, the Baltic states and other countries of the alliance, as this would mean NATO’s direct participation in the conflict with Moscow, the analyst added.
“The problem of transferring fighters to Kyiv is multifactorial and is still in the field of general reasoning. However, the training of Ukrainian pilots, apparently, has already begun, and this cannot be ignored. It will take many months to prepare, but the United States and Great Britain are forming the conditions so that at the right time, from their point of view, they make a positive decision and quickly transfer planes to Kyiv”, says Bartosh.
In a RT commentary, Andrei Koshkin, a member of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, noted that the issue of providing the Armed Forces of Ukraine with aviation is not an edge, but only at the moment and due to the lack of the necessary infrastructure.
“In order to supply planes to the Zelensky regime, in Ukraine, you must first bring the runways into proper condition, build warehouses, hangars and other infrastructure facilities. If Western aircraft are transferred, relatively speaking, tomorrow, then it will be impossible to operate them normally”, Koshkin explained.
Moreover, London, according to the expert, does not want to risk its specialists by sending them to Ukraine to service aircraft. According to Koshkin, the kingdom is afraid of getting too deeply involved in the conflict with the Russian Federation and negative resonance from the news about the death of British soldiers.
At the same time, according to the interlocutor of RT, one should not underestimate the “resourcefulness” of the British authorities in the search for personnel for the maintenance and management of Western aircraft.
“The British are being cautious, they don’t want to expose themselves once again, but, having enlisted the support of the United States, they, I think, will spare no effort in finding “hot heads” to send to Ukraine. These may be employees of PMCs, people with experience in the field of combat aviation from different NATO countries. But even in this case, it will be very difficult to find people with high qualifications and who are ready to die for Ukraine”, Koshkin concluded.
Alexey Zakvasin, Elizaveta Komarova, RT
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