London “does not rule out” sending planes to Ukraine

UPDATE DAY

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace on Thursday did not rule out supplying Ukraine with fighter jets, while warning that it was not a “magic wand” given the training time required.

“On the issue of aircraft, I was clear. If there is one thing we have learned from the past year, it is not to take action in advance and not to exclude anything,” the minister told reporters. sidelines of an Aukus Partnership Summit with Australia.

Kyiv is asking for American-made F-16s to help it repel the Ukrainian invasion.

The United States has indicated that it is not currently considering supplying F-16s to Ukraine, but other countries such as Poland have been more open about the issue.

“I I'm very open to looking at all kinds of systems, not just planes, to provide that assistance to Ukraine,” Ben Wallace said.

“These things don't happen overnight. But I can say that we are not putting Ukrainians at risk,” he added.

Downing Street has so far seemed to rule out sending fighter jets. The Typhoon and F-35 aircraft are “extremely sophisticated and it takes months to learn to fly them”, “we believe it is not practical to send these planes to Ukraine”, the carrier said on Tuesday. word of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The UK said last month it planned to send tanks to Ukraine at the end of March, after becoming the first country to pledge heavy armor, in in this case 14 Challenger 2 tanks.

Training Ukrainian airmen “would take months”, he added, “there is no magic wand in this horrible conflict”.

p>

• Listen to Normand Lester's chronicle via QUB radio: