News - Middle East: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that his forces finally received F-16 fighter jets promised to the former Soviet republic by US-led Western countries.

Zelensky said on Sunday that Kiev forces had received the first batch of F-16 fighter jets. It took more than two years of intense lobbying by the Ukrainian leader to acquire the American-made jets.

“F-16s are in Ukraine. We did it,” Zelensky said in a video posted on social media networks on Sunday showing him at an air base. And, he claimed that the Ukrainian pilots “have already started using them."

“We often heard the words that this is impossible,” Zelensky said. “But we have made possible what was our ambition, our defense need.”

“Now it is a reality,” he said, adding, “Reality is in our skies.”