‘Wings of freedom’: could the UK deliver on jets promise to Ukraine?

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Britain to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine to prevent the “stagnation“ of his country’s war against Russia.

Addressing the UK Parliament after a meeting with Rishi Sunak yesterday, the Ukrainian president said that jets provided by the West could “give us wings for freedom”.

Sunak subsequently told a press conference that “nothing is off the table”. But while the prime minister is under pressure to offer further military aid following Zelenskyy’s surprise trip to London, questions are also being asked about whether Britain has jets to give.

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‘Nothing to be lost’

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine “will help define the 21st century”, said Tory MP Bob Seely in an article for the Daily Mail, and Britain “must” send jets to the invaded nation. Citing his experience “serving in the UK’s past four major military campaigns”, Seely argued that “the least dangerous course of action is to give the Ukrainians ‘the tools to finish the job’ – as Winston Churchill put it to President Roosevelt in a similar context”.

The Sun also called on Sunak’s government to “give this heroic nation the jets that it needs – now”. To defeat Russia, Zelenskyy “needs a hell of a lot more than his warm welcome from our King and MPs”, said the paper.

The Times made a similar case. The UK and its Nato partners have “drawn the line” at sending aircraft to Ukraine so far, said the paper’s editorial board, but Zelenskyy’s “powerful case for the help his country needs” should prompt its allies “into giving Ukraine the fighter jets needed to survive”.

Boris Johnson has weighed in too. In a tweet following Zelenskyy’s speech, the former prime minister insisted that “there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by sending planes now”.

‘Decades of cuts’

Some UK government members “remain sceptical about the idea” of providing Ukraine with air power, according to the i news site. An unnamed cabinet minister reportedly warned that “we haven’t got any f***ing jets to give”.

Sunak should “perhaps have a look at exactly what is on his table” before making any promises, wrote Sky News’s security and defence editor Deborah Haynes. “Here is a clue: it isn't much.” Following “decades of cuts” to the UK Armed Forces, she continued, the Royal Air Force is “a runt of its former self, with far too few planes, pilots and instructors to teach new talent”.

The Telegraph also warned that “from treaty permissions to long training times”, Sunak “will have a tough job getting Zelenskyy’s men in the air on British planes”. The RAF’s “dwindling fleet” of Typhoon jets “won’t be going anywhere fast”, the paper’s associate editor Dominic Nicholls explained, because they are made in collaboration with three other countries – Spain, Italy and Germany – and they would all “need to give permission to donate the aircraft”.

Even then, the jets are only for air-to-air defence, rather than the ground-attack role that Kyiv would require. “It is possible to convert them but it would take months,” said Nicholls, and that is “another reason they will not be sent to Ukraine”.

Kim Sengupta, world affairs editor at The Independent, suggested that instead, Ukrainian fighter pilots might undergo training courses with the RAF before being sent out to battle in American F-16s.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said there would be no immediate transfer of UK fighter jets. He told the BBC that it was “not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border” and that it was more “realistic” to expect the UK to provide aircraft in the long-term to help with security after the war.

“Britain knows what Ukraine needs and is very happy to help in many ways trying to achieve the effect. Those same effects can be done, but potentially through a different way - and without taking months, which of course gifting fighter jets would take,” he said.