Ukraine Requests Finland’s F/A-18 Fighters
- Defensemirror.com Bureau
- 02:16 PM, March 23, 2023
Ukraine has reportedly
submitted a request to Finland for F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets.
The Finnish
newspaper Helsingin
Sanomat reported this with reference to its own sources.
Transfer of these aircraft
to Ukraine requires U.S. approval since they are manufactured by American
company Boeing.
Sanna Marin, Prime
Minister of Finland said during her visit to Kyiv in March that her country and
other allies might consider providing Ukraine with F/A-18 fighter
jets.
“We have new
F35 fighters coming… When these old Hornets are decommissioned, we can discuss
their future use,” Marin told reporters around ten days
ago. “I think we could discuss the Hornet fighter jets
– whether it would be possible to offer them to Ukraine and what preparation is
needed for this.”
Since the start of the war
in Ukraine, Western governments have been humming and hawing over
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeals for aircraft, mostly because they
fear that deliveries of ultra-sophisticated warplanes would stoke tensions with
nuclear-armed Russia and escalate the conflict.
The Finnish Air Force’s
62-strong F/A-18 Hornet fighter fleet will be replaced with 64 stealthy F-35
combat jets it has ordered from Lockheed Martin. Hornet combat jets are at the
end of their service life in Finland.
The first F-35 fighters
will enter service with the country’s Air Force in 2025, given the personnel
training in the United States. In general, it is planned to replace the Hornet
fleet with the F-35 from 2028 to 2030.
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