UK Has 'No F***ing Jets' to Spare to Meet Zelensky's 'Thanks in Advance' Demand

The UK has already gifted rocket artillery and howitzers and more than a hundred armoured vehicles to Kiev, and has now pledged 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks and all its working self-propelled guns. But Ukraine's president flew into London on Wednesday to demand even more.

The UK has no jet fighters to give to Ukraine — that is the blunt view of a government minister and a Royal Air Force (RAF) officer.

Their comments poured cold water on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's latest round of high-level begging for arms from US-dominated alliance NATO, which has now escalated to demands for combat aircraft to strike deep into Russia.

"We haven’t got any f*cking jets to give!" one un-named cabinet minister told a daily newspaper on Thursday.

During his surprise visit to the UK on Wednesday, Zelensky thanked MPs gathered in Parliament's Westminster Hall "in advance for the powerful English planes."

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had earlier announced that the armed forces would train Ukrainian marines and pilots — despite the former Soviet republic having lost its navy and almost all of its air force in the first few months of the Russian military de-Nazification operation.

But later that day, the Ukrainian president said he had not realised that it took three years to train a jet fighter pilot. Speaking in front of a tank beside Sunak, Zelensky joked that Kiev would be sending pilots who had already been in training for two-and-a-half years.

I didn't even know it takes 3 years to train a pilot like that [on "Typhoon"]." "Come on, we will be sending you pilots who have already trained for 2.5 years." - Zelensky

What a moron! pic.twitter.com/h8AlAIfu4n

— ConstanZe 🕊 (@Constanze2022) February 8, 2023

The Ukrainian Air Force has already called up retired pilots to fly its dwindling collection of aircraft inherited from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Some British media reported that up to 20 older 'Tranche One' F2 models of the Eurofighter Typhoon, already retired from combat duty, could meet Kiev's incessant demand for jet aircraft to replace those shot down by Russian fighters and air defence forces. But a source inside the RAF told media that was simply unreaslistic

"Tranche 1 are just training aircraft no good for combat," said an RAF insider.

The RAF now only has around 100 FGR4 variants out of the 160 Typhoons delivered over the last two decades in service, and has mothballed its Tornado strike and interceptor models and Harrier STOVL close air support jets years ago.

"The Tornado is a fantastic jet, but too difficult to maintain, operate and they will now be in disrepair or mothballs. Going nowhere for months," the RAF source said, while other types were "too expensive, complicated, we don't have any spare".

That did not stop former PM Boris Johnson calling on Sunak to send the UK's entire armoury to Kiev.

"We have more than 100 Typhoon jets. We have more than 100 Challenger 2 tanks," Johnson said on Wednesday. "The best single use for any of these items is to deploy them now for the protection of the Ukrainians."

To make matters worse, the RAF grounded its fleet of BAE Hawk advanced jet trainers in late January after an incident on a runway revealed problems with their engines. And last August it emerged that only 11 pilots out of a possible 43 'holddies' would get conversion training onto the Typhoon or the US F-35B bought to equip the Royal Navy's two new aircraft carriers.

"Unbelievable," the source said. "We have clearly established we can't train our own pilots. The holdies are in shock."