US calls on NATO allies to send F-16 fighters to Ukraine
(Baonghean.vn) - According to RT, in a letter obtained by Reuters on August 17, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Denmark and the Netherlands could send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as soon as pilot training was completed.
“I write to express the full support of the United States for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors,” Mr. Blinken wrote in a letter to his counterparts in The Hague and Copenhagen.
According to Reuters, Mr. Blinken pledged that the US would approve all necessary third-party requests for the supply of US-made jets, so that Ukraine could “take full advantage of its new capabilities as soon as the first group of pilots completes training.”
News of the letter came just a day after Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat told reporters that Kiev had “high hopes” of receiving the fighter jets this year, but “unfortunately, it is now clear that we will not be able to protect Ukraine with F-16s during the fall and winter of this year.”
Denmark and the Netherlands are spearheading a “coalition” to train Ukrainian pilots on the US-made fighter jets, RT reports. The coalition also includes Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the UK and Sweden. About half of those countries do not actually have F-16s in service. And none of them have publicly committed to sending any F-16s to Kiev.
Senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, was adamant in early July, telling reporters that the planes would “likely” come from “European countries with excess supplies of F-16s.”
The F-16 is a single-engine fighter aircraft, designed by General Dynamics in the 1970s and currently in limited production by Lockheed Martin, which also produces the infamous F-35.
Ukrainian officials have said that the training will begin “around August,” and that the planes will be ready for service by the end of March 2024, if all goes according to schedule. However, the Washington Post recently noted that the first six pilots will need to take a four-month English course before they can begin flying lessons.
When Mr Biden first mentioned the F-16s in May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said sending them to Ukraine would be “an unacceptable escalation” and warned the West not to “play with fire”.
Speaking in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin predicted that the F-16s would “burn out” like the Western tanks supplied to Kiev, and said Russia would attack locations outside Ukraine if the F-16s were based there. Operating the F-16s requires a nice, flat runway, something Ukraine does not currently have.