After a long campaign and “hundreds of meetings”, the first batch of F-16s arrived in Ukraine in the summer of 2024. The American-made multirole fighter jet has a long and proven service history with dozens of operators.

Ukraine used its new F-16s in combat for the first time last week to shoot down Russian missiles during a massive attack. A jet was lost in the fight.

A week after F-16 fighter crashed, Ukraine’s Western allies questioned Zelensky for hastily sending fighter jet pilots to combat. After the pilot of the jet killed, West rues that Ukrainians went into the fight right away without having any experience of operating the flight.