© EPA-EFE/Terje Pedersen NORWAY OUT Ukraine was supposed to receive all the promised F-16s by the end of 2025.
The Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Sture, announced that the first of the six F-16 combat aircraft provided to Ukraine by his nation will soon be operational. He mentioned this during a media briefing alongside the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
He specified that the warplanes given to Ukraine were not actively used in Norway, thus necessitating essential maintenance and readiness procedures for deployment by the Ukrainian Air Force.
“They now belong to Ukraine, and technicians in Belgium are carrying out repairs and preparation under an agreement established with the US and Ukraine. And I anticipate that the initial aircraft will be put into service shortly,” Sture stated.
Concurrently, Zelenskyy indicated that the necessity for repairs on the supplied aircraft was already known to Ukraine.
“Therefore, we understand that these aircraft will arrive in Ukraine following repairs,” he expressed.
As a reminder, back in May 2025, Toure Sandvik indicated that Ukraine would acquire all the designated F-16 fighters in their entirety by the close of 2025. According to his statements, a portion of these warplanes had already been given to the Ukrainian side.
However, in April 2026, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation NRK discovered that Ukraine had yet to receive any of the six F-16 fighter jets that Norway had pledged to give to the Ukrainian Air Force. The media outlet reported that two of the six aircraft, previously employed for training Ukrainian pilots in Denmark, are currently undergoing repairs in Belgium. These repairs are projected to last for over a year. An additional four F-16 aircraft were unable to fly, so they were dispatched to the Sabena repair facility in Belgium in a disassembled condition back in April 2025.
Journalists have uncovered that this facility is experiencing notable challenges in its capacity to service and repair F-16 aircraft. Sources suggest that this is the primary reason why the Norwegian F-16 aircraft have not yet reached Ukraine.