President Biden on Friday approved a plan to train Ukrainian troops on F-16 fighter jets, moving Kyiv a step closer to receiving the military aircraft after more than a year of pleading.
Biden reportedly made the announcement during a meeting of the G-7 in Hiroshima, where the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US are meeting to discuss security concerns such as the growing threats from Russia, China and North Korea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — who is expected to meet with the G-7 on Saturday — has been begging the US and other Western nations to provide fighter jets since nearly the beginning of its 15-month war with invader Russia.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia has achieved air superiority during the war.
Still, even with Biden approving the training, the US wouldn’t necessarily send the fighter jets itself.
Other NATO allies, such as Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, could be the conduit.
But the White House would still need to sign off on a third country’s request to get the American-made Lockheed-Martin jets to Ukraine — and Biden’s OK to the group on training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16s may be indicative of a coming approval to do just that.
Some US defense officials had been quietly concerned that sending the aircraft to Ukraine could escalate tensions between Moscow and Washington, or further provoke Russian brutality in Ukraine.
The Pentagon has officially continued to claim — even as recently as Thursday — that the US is instead focused on sending Ukraine other weapons such as air defense, missiles and rocket systems and munitions.
“Our priority has been giving Ukraine the air defense systems that they need and also their other priorities, including armor and artillery,” Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Thursday. “That’s what we’ve been focused on with our packages. But when it comes to F-16s, I just have nothing new to announce today.”
Nypost.