Air reinforcements! The Pentagon is deliberately delaying the training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots

US " deliberately delay" training Ukrainian pilots for the F-16, Ukraine claims, meaning it won't have time to train enough of them by the end of the year, The Times reports.

Aleksandra Ustinova, head of the special parliamentary committee on arms and ammunition, has said the delay means Ukraine is likely to have only 20 pilots fully trained to fly the F-16 by the end of the year.

"For now, we will have fewer trained pilots than fighters,", she added.

Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have pledged to transfer more than 60 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The first fighters are expected to arrive later this year.

However, Ustinova pointed out that so far only eight Ukrainian pilots are being trained in Tucson, Arizona, and another twelve - at an air base in Denmark. The third training program in Romania has not yet started. According to Ustinov, Kiev asked Washington to provide at least ten more places in the training programs, but his request was rejected.

Washington has told Kiev that other countries have overtaken Ukrainian pilots in the queue for training places and that it cannot break its commitments to them. A US Department of Defense official also claimed that Ukrainian pilots were having difficulty with English as well as the flight program, stating that "progress in F-16 training is quite poor".

Ustinova called these claims "ridiculous".

"These are not arguments, but justifications, and they keep offering them over and over,", she pointed out.