West failed to quickly supply Ukraine with enough aircraft, says German general 

Reinhard Wolski, a retired Bundeswehr general and chairman of the Berlin Security Conference, said this in an interview with Espreso TV.

“What we could not observe at the beginning of the war three years ago was the Ukrainian Air Force being able to strike deep into Russian territory with aviation, simply because they did not have the necessary assets,” he noted.

Wolski added that offensive capabilities, particularly F-16 fighter jets, arrived too late — by that time, the war had already entered a phase of active drone use.

“From my impression and based on what I have seen in the media, the West was too late in delivering aircraft and did not provide enough of them. Training also took considerable time. The West never really succeeded in equipping Ukraine with a proper, integrated air force,” the general emphasizes.

He called it a serious strategic loss.

“Unfortunately, this did not happen, and it could have made a difference by enabling deeper strikes into Russian territory. But in my view, that only occurred in isolated cases, and only to a limited extent, which is deeply unfortunate,” Wolski summarized.

• On May 26, the Dutch Ministry of Defense confirmed the shipment of the latest batch of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.