"Exactly when a decision will be taken [to deliver F-16s to Ukraine] it's too early to say, but the fact that training has started provides us with the option to also decide to deliver planes, and then the pilots will be ready to fly them," Stoltenberg told reporters before the NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
Stoltenberg thanked those NATO member countries who offered to provide Ukrainians with F-16 training.
Meanwhile, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said ahead of the NATO meeting that the issue of delivering F-16 jets to Ukraine was not discussed at the moment.
"Of course it is about the pilots, but it is also training, about technical personal, maintenance etc, a next step, but that would be indeed a new decision also by the Americans [who] would be providing them with the actual platform, but that is not on the table right now," Ollongren said.
Acting Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said that Ukrainian pilots would be trained at the Skrydstrup air base in the central part of Denmark.
"We are planning that it will take place in Skrydstrup, where our F-16 combat aircraft are based," Danish Broadcasting Corporation quoted Poulsen as saying.
On Wednesday, Stoltenberg said that NATO would begin the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16s this summer. On the same day, the Dutch Defense Ministry said that a training center for Ukrainian pilots would be created in one of the Eastern European countries.
Russia has slammed the possible deliveries of F-16s to Ukraine and warned that the jets will become a legitimate military target for Russian forces. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that the supply of F-16 fighters to Ukraine would become another escalation, as there is a modification of the fighter capable of carrying nuclear weapons.