Slovakia has received the first two of 14 promised F-16 military aircraft from the US after a two-year delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a shortage of chips.
According to foreign media, President Peter Pellegrini has celebrated the arrival of the planes, saying that they will “contribute to increasing the defense capabilities of our country”.
Slovakia invested 2% of its GDP in defense in 2024, but has relied largely on its neighbors to patrol its skies since decommissioning about a dozen Soviet-era MiG-29 jets in 2022.
The MiG-29s lacked spare parts and could not be maintained by technicians as Russian technicians left Slovakia for Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Fellow NATO members Poland, the Czech Republic and later Hungary intervened to preserve Slovak airspace.
Meanwhile in 2022, Prime Minister Eduard Heger’s government donated its fleet of MiG-29s to Ukraine after the Ukrainian government said they were necessary for its defense against a full-scale invasion by Russia.
It became the second NATO country, after Poland, to comply with Kiev’s request for unused fighter jets.
As the media points out, the $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) deal to buy replacement F-16s from the US was reached in 2018.
It includes both the planes themselves, as well as pilot training and logistics services. The rest of the 14 aircraft will be delivered over a period of two years.
The defense minister at the time, Peter Gajdos, said the deal was “the best possible solution”.
However, Slovakia now has a relatively pro-Russian government led by Prime Minister Robert Fico.
During the parliamentary elections that brought him to power, he explicitly condemned the donation of airplanes to Ukraine.
