{"id":1304901,"date":"2025-10-11T19:16:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T16:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/belgium-will-receive-the-first-f-35-fighters-from-the-us-how-will-this-affect-the-transfer-of-f-16s-to-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T19:16:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T16:16:35","slug":"belgium-will-receive-the-first-f-35-fighters-from-the-us-how-will-this-affect-the-transfer-of-f-16s-to-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/belgium-will-receive-the-first-f-35-fighters-from-the-us-how-will-this-affect-the-transfer-of-f-16s-to-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium will receive the first F-35 fighters from the US: how will this affect the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken announced that the country will receive the first four F-35 fighters from the United States on October 13. This delivery is of strategic importance not only for Brussels, but also for Ukraine – it is the renewal of the Belgian air fleet that paves the way for the transfer of F-16 combat aircraft to Kyiv.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is reported by Le Soir.<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Franken, the supply of the latest fighters will be an important stage in the modernization of the country’s air force.<\/p>\n

“We started by visiting the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas, the manufacturing site of our F-35s. The first four aircraft will arrive in Florence on Monday,” Franken said.<\/p>\n

According to media reports, the F-35s that will be delivered to the Belgian Air Force will be based at Florens Air Base, where they will become part of Squadron 1. It is expected that these fighters will participate in NATO rapid response missions by 2027.<\/p>\n

The supply of F-35s is also of particular importance for Ukraine. It is the renewal of the Belgian air fleet that allows Brussels to transfer its F-16s to Kyiv. Back in 2023, former Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder stated that Ukraine would receive several Belgian F-16s in 2025, “depending on the increase in the power of the new F-35s.”<\/p>\n

Now that deliveries of the new fighters have begun, the process of transferring the F-16s is becoming much more realistic. Theo Francken previously confirmed that Belgium remains part of the international “F-16 coalition” and is ready to accelerate the transfer of the aircraft to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

“We are already and will remain in the coalition regarding the F-16, and we will try to deliver the aircraft even earlier than planned. I think this is also good news,” said the Belgian Defense Minister.<\/p>\n

Thus, Belgium’s acquisition of the F-35 not only strengthens its own defense capabilities, but also brings closer the moment when Ukraine will receive modern F-16 fighters to protect its skies from Russian aggression.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Deputy Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Ivan Havrylyuk reported that Ukraine is counting on receiving not only American F-16 fighters, but also French Mirage and Swedish Gripen.<\/a><\/p>\n

By the way, in August, Belgium announced a large-scale plan to help Ukraine<\/a> : it will allocate 1 billion euros annually, provide F-16 fighter jets, and help rebuild the country’s infrastructure. In addition, Brussels is ready to participate in a peacekeeping mission after a ceasefire, and will use frozen Russian assets to support Ukrainian schools, hospitals, and the energy sector.<\/p>\n

Recall that on May 26, the last of the 24 F-16 fighters<\/a> that the Dutch authorities promised to transfer to Ukraine already took off from Volkel Air Base.<\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken announced that the country will receive the first four F-35 fighters from the United States on October 13. This delivery is of strategic importance not only for Brussels, but also for Ukraine – it is the renewal of the Belgian air fleet that paves the way for the transfer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":802322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76870,76871,76872,76875],"class_list":["post-1304901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-other-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}