“Not”. When asked if the United States will supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, United States President Joe Biden responded with that emphatic monosyllable upon his return to the White House after attending an action in Baltimore Monday.
The answer comes just five days after Biden himself, amid much fanfare from inside the presidential residence, gave the go-ahead for the delivery of 31 M-1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, something the Pentagon has opposed for months because those vehicles are not the best solution for the Ukrainian armed forces.
Almost immediately after the announcement in Washington and the statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin promising the delivery of 14 Leopard tanks as well as permission for the re-export of these German-made vehicles to other countries, Kyiv returned to the prosecution and reiterated another request: It also needed warplanes to withstand the foreseeable new Russian offensive it expects in the spring and to retake at least part of its Moscow-held territory.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksi Reznikov stressed that the planes are essential for consolidating the Kiev counter-offensive. So far, this request has received a mixed response. While Emmanuel Macron in France does not rule out the possibility, Germany rejects it. And Biden said no. White House director of strategic communications for the National Security Council, John Kirby, said last week: “I don’t blame the Ukrainians for wanting more and more weapons systems. It’s not the first time they’ve deployed fighter jets, but I have no announcements to make on the matter.”
But Volodimir Zelinsky’s government is optimistic about the possibility of reaching them. An aide to the Ukrainian president, Mikhailo Podoliak, assures that the West “understands how the war is developing” and that planes capable of supporting the promised tanks must be sent.
If this war has shown anything, it is that what is unthinkable today, or receives a clear rejection, will be approved or come to pass a few weeks or months later. “Anything that is impossible today will be possible tomorrow,” Reznikov himself told CBC this weekend. During the first weeks of the war, which marks its first anniversary in February, Washington was severely reluctant to eventually send equipment ranging from HIMARS missile launch systems to the Abrams, partly for fear of provoking an escalation of the conflict.
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Just two weeks ago, the Pentagon insisted that these tanks, despite their maneuverability and endurance, were too expensive to maintain and difficult to supply. But although, according to Kirby himself, “it will take many months to reach Ukrainian territory, that green light has already been given.
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