Polish and Ukrainian presidents meet in southeastern Poland

None of the leaders President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met gave any public undertaking that they were ready to offer the jets, a step certain to be seen in Moscow as further evidence of direct Western involvement in the war. Britain promised to help train Ukrainian pilots to fly NATO jets but stopped short of offering to provide them.

Ukraine has made clear it plans its own major counteroffensive in the coming months to reclaim more of the roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory that Russia occupies. But it appears likely to wait until it has received at least some of the main battle tanks and longer-range missiles that the United States, Germany and other NATO allies have promised.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday night met Polish President Andrzej Duda in the southeastern Polish city od Rzeszów to brief him about his tour to London, Paris and Brussels to ask for more weaponry, notably fighter planes.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he did not rule out sending combat aircraft to Ukraine at some point but that, in the short term, artillery would be more use to Kyiv.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy suggested that he had, however, received some form of commitments on planes.

"Europe will be with us until our victory. I've heard it from a number of European leaders...about the readiness to give us the necessary weapons and support, including the aircraft," he told a news conference after attending a European Union summit in Brussels.