NATO positively assesses preparations for F-16 deployment in Ukraine – Head of Ukraine’s Mission

Head of Ukraine’s Mission to NATO Nataliia Galibarenko spoke of this during a virtual briefing with Ukrainian mass media, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Among the countries participating in the F-16 Coalition, there was a discussion of where we are today. Basically, everything is going according to schedule. The training and preparation of pilots, maintenance staff, language training, and infrastructure preparation continues, that is, there were positive evaluations in this regard," the Ukrainian diplomat said.

She noted the special importance of the political context in which today's Ukraine-NATO Council met. In particular, she recalled that the European Council would meet in Brussels on February 1, where one of the main issues will be continued financial assistance to Ukraine. And already in mid-February, a NATO defense ministerial is set to be held, on the sidelines of which a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Ramstein) usually takes place.

"In this context, today's meeting is very important so that we approach these meetings not only with proposals, announcements, or promises, but already move to the implementation of these proposals and announcements. We must by all means keep our country on the radar, and not allow the topic of Ukraine to take a back seat,” added Galibarenko.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, an extraordinary meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council at the ambassadorial level was held today at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, convened at the initiative of the Ukrainian side in response to Russia’s recent massive missile and drone strikes on Ukraine.