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The US military is training two Ukrainian pilots on American soil to gauge how much time they would need in order to learn how to fly fighter jets such as the F-16.
The pair are being taught using flight simulators at a base in Tucson, Arizona, a senior US official told NBC News.
The official said that neither pilot will fly actual aircraft during their time in the US. As many as ten more pilots will arrive this month for similar training referred to as a ‘familiarization event.’
‘The program is about assessing their abilities as pilots so we can better advise them on how to use capabilities they have and we have given them,’ the official told the network.
The official went on to ‘stress’ that this is not an official training program and is not an indicator that President Joe Biden will be sending F-16s to Ukraine, amid calls from both sides of aisle for him to do so.
Biden said in an ABC News interview last week that he’s not ready to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing the US and allies for jets, but White House officials have pushed back that they are not the weaponry that Ukrainians need in the near term.
‘There is no basis on which there is a rationale, according to our military now to provide F-16s,’ Biden said. ‘I am ruling it out for now.’