Serhiy Holubtsov, one of the most senior commanders in the air force, said that while donations of Soviet-era MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets by allies were an "important step," the planes did not fully meet Ukraine's battlefield requirements.

NATO members Poland and Slovakia recently began to hand over MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, as Kyiv prepares for a much-vaunted counter-offensive to retake territory occupied by Russia.

But Holubtsov said that while Soviet-era warplanes were better than nothing, they would not be able to fully counteract Russia's vast air force.

"The F-16 is a fighter that has become a multirole aircraft which can fulfil the entire spectrum of airborne tasks. The MiG-29 unfortunately, is [an aircraft] from the last century," he said on national television.

On a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed Poland would take a leading role in forming a "coalition" of Western powers supplying warplanes to Ukraine.

Warsaw helped galvanize support for supplies of tanks earlier this year.

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