Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has said that Poland has started training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 combat aircraft.

Poland was one of a number of countries now training Ukrainian on the US-made jet, he added.

During the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the United States told its allies that it would back an international project to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s involving the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has said he is confident that his country will eventually receive supplies of F-16s.