President Biden\u2002in a new interview said he is ruling out providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine \u201cfor now,\u201d despite pleas from Ukrainian leadership for the planes in their war against Russia.
\n\u201cHe doesn\u2019t need F-16s now,\u201d Biden told ABC News\u2019s David Muir when asked about the requests from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
\n\u201cI am ruling it out for now,\u201d Biden said, adding that there was no rationale at the moment to provide the planes, according U.S. military leaders.
\nUkrainian officials have in recent weeks ramped up the pressure on the U.S. to provide F-16s in the war effort, particularly after the Biden administration and European allies finally agreed to provide the war-torn country with tanks.
\nThe Biden administration has also provided billions of dollars in military aid since the war began one year ago, including long-range missile defense systems, air defense systems, ammunition, armored vehicles and more.
\nSome critics have argued the Biden administration has been too\u2002slow to deliberate and respond to Ukrainian requests for equipment before ultimately acquiescing and providing what is requested.
\nBut Biden officials have been adamant that Ukraine does not need F-16s based on the current state of the war.
\n\u201c[The Ukrainians are] about to mount a significant counteroffensive,\u201d White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a CNN town hall event on Thursday night. \u201cFrom our perspective, F-16s are not the key capability for that offensive. It is the stuff that we are moving rapidly to the front lines now.\u201d
\nBiden traveled to Kyiv earlier this week to mark the anniversary of Russia\u2019s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. He appeared alongside Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital, vowing that U.S. support for the country would not waver as the war enters its second year.<\/p>\n
Thehill<\/p>\n
Tags:rules<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Biden\u2002in a new interview said he is ruling out providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine \u201cfor now,\u201d despite pleas from Ukrainian leadership for the planes in their war against Russia. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t need F-16s now,\u201d Biden told ABC News\u2019s David Muir when asked about the requests from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. \u201cI am ruling it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1169,1843,1735],"class_list":["post-6396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-biden","tag-now","tag-out"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6398,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396\/revisions\/6398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}