It could be years before the UK gives any fighter jets to Ukraine, Ben Wallace has said.
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday morning, the defence secretary suggested it would likely even. have to wait until the war was over.
“I don’t think it’s going to be in the next few months or even years that we are going to necessarily hand over fighter jets,” he said.
“These are aircraft that come with not only huge sort of capability challenges, you know, you just can’t learn to fly in a week or two, it will take a long time.”
He added: “But also they come with effectively a pit crew, like a Formula One team, you know.
“They come with hundreds of engineers and pilots and that’s not something you can just generate in a few months.
“We’re not going to deploy, you know, 200 RAF personnel into Ukraine in the time of a war.”
Sending British military personal into the warzone would likely be seen ass a huge escalation by Vladimir Putin and risk a direct conflict between Russia and Nato.
Wallace’s comments came as he joined his counterparts for a Nato meeting in Brussels.
The second day of the gathering of Nato defence ministers comes after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy toured London, Paris and Brussels as part of efforts to convince allies to arm Kyiv with fighter planes.
The request, which comes as the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches, is the latest plea from Zelenskyy to Western allies.
Britain has. agreed to become the first nation to start training Ukrainian pilots on Nato-standard aircraft, but the delivery of the jets looks to be a long way off.