Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
(Picture: PA Wire)Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has refused to rule out Britain sending fighter jets to Ukraine but warned there is "no magic wand in this horrendous conflict”.
Speaking at a press briefing following a UK-Australia ministerial summit in Portsmouth, Mr Wallace said the UK would respond to Ukraine’s requests as it seeks to repel Vladimir Putin’s forces.
“On the question of jets, one thing I’ve learned over the last year is don’t rule anything in, don’t rule anything out,” he said.
“That is the simple reality. We respond to the needs of the Ukrainians at the time, based on what the Ukrainians tell us, what we see in intelligence, in our knowledge of the Russians on the battlefield.
“Right now what the Ukrainians need is the ability to form military formations on the ground in order to use combined artillery to push back Russian forces.
“The issue here is it’s easy to get carried away. Last week we gave tanks, what next?”
The Defence Secretary’s comments come after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to Western allies to supply advanced combat jets to protect the country’s skies from Russian attacks.
Mr Zelensky said: “We have to unlock the supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine, it is important for us to expand our co-operation in artillery, we have to achieve the supply of aircraft to Ukraine. And this is a dream... a task. An important task for all of us.”
Modern western planes would be a major upgrade on Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighting jets - mostly MiGs, which were largely made before the country declared independence from the USSR in 1991.
But US President Joe Biden has ruled out sending US Air Force F-16 jets and Downing Street has insisted it is “not practical” to send any of its RAF Typhoon or F35 fighter jets to Ukraine.
No 10 said on Thursday that the UK’s current fast jet training programme takes five years. Mr Wallace agreed that training Ukrainian pilots to use UK fighter jets would “take months”, and suggested the priority should be helping train Kyiv’s forces to take back territory.
Britain has agreed to send a squadron of 14 Challenger 2 tanksto bolster Ukraine’s forces in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile Mr Wallace said defence spending could need to increase for decades as the UK faces an increasingly dangerous world.
The Defence Secretary said a "growing proportion" of government spending would need to go towards keeping the country safe.
He said: "There's a recognition that as the world gets more dangerous, unstable, defence should continue to get a growing proportion of spend, we can then debate how much that proportion should be," he said.
"But my point is the direction of travel is: the world is more dangerous and unstable, and likely to remain so for a decade or two.
"And I think that's just about changing that perception.
Earlier this week Mr Wallace told MPs the armed forces had been "hollowed out and underfunded".
