First F-16 fighter jets arrive in Slovakia from the US

Slovakia has received the first two of a promised 14 F-16 military jets from the US after a two-year delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of chips.

President Peter Pellegrini celebrated the arrival of the jets, saying that they would "contribute to the increase of defence capabilities of our country”.

Slovakia invested 2% of its GDP in defence in 2024, but has largely relied on its neighbours to patrol its skies since it grounded about a dozen Soviet-era MiG-29 jets in 2022.

The MiG-29s lacked spare parts and technicians that could maintain them after Russian technicians left Slovakia for Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Fellow NATO members Poland, the Czech Republic, and later Hungary stepped in to guard Slovakian airspace.

In 2022, Prime Minister Eduard Heger's government gifted Ukraine its fleet of MiG-29s after the Ukrainian government said they were necessary for its defence against Russia's full-scale invasion.

It became the second NATO country, after Poland, to fulfil Kyiv's requests for the disused warplanes.

The $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) deal to purchase the replacement F-16s from the US was struck in 2018. It includes both the aircraft themselves and the training of pilots and logistics services. The rest of the 14 jets will be delivered over a period of two years.

The defence 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 election that brought him to power, he explicitly condemned the donations of the jets to Ukraine.