Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has been urged by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide his country’s armed forces some of the F-18 Hornet jets from the fourth generation, which Finland is retiring.
“We take everything that is given to us. <…> We are ready to learn on anything that floats or flies. If Finland doesn’t need the F-18s, then let’s, we will gladly take them,” he said during a joint press conference with Orpo, who is currently in Kyiv.
Zelensky stated that F-16s remain a priority for Ukraine due to their quantity, which can satisfy the air force’s requirements. Nevertheless, he says Ukraine is willing to “accept any type of aircraft.”
In June, Australia reportedly considered deploying 41 decommissioning F/A-18 Hornets to Ukraine. Retired Royal Australian Air Force Hornets are anticipated to be destroyed or sold to a private company. Most aircraft could be restored to flying condition with minimal effort, while the remainder could be disassembled for their parts. Currently, the aircraft is in storage.
However, in July, Australian Minister of Defence Richard Marles stated on ABC Radio National that transferring these aircraft is a complex issue. This fact must be acknowledged: switching to multirole fighter aircraft is significantly more intricate than switching to armoured vehicles. Training pilots and technicians to operate a particular aircraft model is necessary. And this procedure appears to have been more complicated than the search for F-16s for Ukraine, as evidenced by the fact that eleven nations have already formed the “F-16 coalition.”
