Should UK transfer fighter jets to Ukraine? Expert urges caution

Rishi Sunak has asked MoD to explore providing Ukraine with RAF fighter jets. No options should be discounted, but an expert suggests transferring UK fighter aircraft makes little military sense.

I n a report published by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology in the Military Sciences team at RUSI, rules out the provision of F-35Bs to Ukraine for technical, security, political and legal reasons.

Although it looks like an “admirable initiative” that could “contribute to unlocking” more Western fast jets – echoing the UK’s offer to provide a small number of Challenger 2 tanks which spurred the provision of Leopard 2 tanks by Germany and other European countries, as well as Abrams by the United States – on a practical level, however, “there are significant limitations” to providing Typhoons from UK stocks, and it carries a “high opportunity cost in terms of RAF frontline readiness”.