Belgium promised Ukraine fighter jets more than two years ago. On 29 September 2026, Volodymyr Zelensky finally put a number and a date on the first of them: three Belgian F-16 Fighting Falcons, to be handed over before the end of this year.
Zelensky announced the agreement on X and thanked Prime Minister Bart De Wever and the Belgian government. Ukraine, he said, will work to receive the aircraft through an accelerated procedure, and it has already taken urgent deliveries of F-16 ammunition from Belgium and other partners.
Three jets will not change the war on their own. But for a country that has spent every night of September watching Russian drones and cruise missiles cross its skies, every additional fighter that can shoot them down matters.
Informations clés
- Annoncé : 29 September 2026, by President Volodymyr Zelensky
- Aéronef: Three F-16s from the Belgian Air Component
- Chronologie: Transfer by the end of 2026, via an accelerated procedure
- Belgian pledge: All 53 Belgian F-16s by 2029 (raised from 30 in May 2026)
- Pourquoi maintenant : Belgium’s F-35As are arriving, freeing up F-16s
- Also delivered: F-16 ammunition from Belgium and other partners
What Zelensky announced
The announcement came on a day of heavy Russian strikes across western Ukraine. Zelensky tied the jets directly to air defence and to the steady rise in Russian drone and missile attacks.
That is exactly the job Ukraine’s F-16s have been doing. Rather than dogfighting Russian jets over the front line, they spend most of their time hunting Shahed-type drones and cruise missiles over Ukrainian cities. The Ukrainian Air Force said this week that its F-16s have brought down more than 3,000 aerial targets, although it did not say over what period.
A long wait for Belgian jets
Belgium first pledged 30 F-16s to Ukraine in 2024, but deliveries kept slipping. The problem was simple: Belgium needed its own F-16s until its replacement F-35As arrived, and the F-35 programme ran late. The first Belgian F-35s only reached Florennes Air Base in October 2025.
In May 2026, Defence Minister Theo Francken’s office went much further and raised the pledge to all 53 of Belgium’s F-16s, according to Belgian newspapers Le Soir and Le Vif. The indicative schedule they reported foresees seven aircraft in 2026, three of them for Ukraine, then five in 2027, 14 in 2028 and the remaining 27 in 2029. Le Soir stressed that the dates depend on the Belgian Air Component’s own operational needs.
The three jets Zelensky announced match that 2026 schedule. Belgium now has 15 F-35As delivered, seven of them in the country and the rest still in the United States for pilot training, so the Air Component can finally start letting its Vipers go.
Pourquoi c'est important
If Belgium sticks to the plan, it will become the largest F-16 donor to Ukraine, ahead of Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, which have already sent aircraft. Just as important, Belgian jets and spare parts will help keep the whole Ukrainian F-16 fleet flying, a quieter problem than the aircraft themselves but just as critical.
The timing is not accidental either. Over the same days, heavy Russian drone and missile strikes hit western Ukraine, and Poland scrambled fighters on its side of the border. Zelensky made the connection himself.
For now, the number is three. For the pilots who will fly them, and the people sleeping under their patrols, three is a great deal better than none.
Sources: Office of the President of Ukraine (Volodymyr Zelensky on X), Ukrinform, Kyiv Independent, Reuters, Aerospace Global News, Le Soir
0 Comments