Joe Biden: US will not send Ukraine F-16 fighter jets

The United States will not supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, the US President Joe Biden says. According to Reuters, he answered negatively when asked whether Washington supports the idea of supplying Kyiv with F-16s.

The US is already supplying Ukraine with different “capabilities” that the country will have the need for this winter and spring, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby notes.

“What I can tell you is that there’s a lot of capability that is being sent, and will be sent in the coming weeks and months. The kinds of capabilities that we know will be critical to helping Ukrainians again in the fighting now in the wintertime, as well as the kind of fighting that we expect that they’re going to be doing in the spring,” he explains.

Discussions on the issue of sending Ukraine fighter jets started after deliveries of Western-made tanks to Ukraine had been approved after months of war.

Politico previously reported, citing sources, that Western countries were discussing the possibility of handing F-16s over to Ukraine, with the Baltic states being especially in favour of the idea. But this decision will probably be more divisive than the tank situation, the publication noted.

Yuriy Ignat, Spokesperson for the Air Force Command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, previously said that Ukraine needed around 180 fighter jets. Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius stated in the past that deliveries of Western fighter jets to Ukraine were impossible. At the same time, French President Emmanuel Macron did not exclude France providing fighter jets to Ukraine, while the UK, according to The Telegraph’s sources, could provide jets under the condition of Russian troops’ withdrawal.

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz previously announced that Germany and the allies would supply Ukraine with 112 Leopard 2 tanks in total. Kyiv is set to start receiving Leopard tanks in three months. Biden also previously stated that the US would send Ukraine 31 Abrams tanks.