President Biden said Monday the U.S. won’t provide F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine.
The president responded “no” when asked by a reporter about the potential for the U.S. to provide F-16s to assist Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion, according to a video of the exchange.
Following the U.S.’ move to provide significant new platforms in recent weapons aid packages for Kyiv, such as Abrams tanks, Bradley and Stryker vehicles and the Patriot missile system, Ukrainian officials have reiterated calls for Lockheed Martin [LMT]-built F-16s to be included in a future security assistance deal.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, in a late November press briefing cited fighter aircraft among the types of capabilities that have significant training and sustainment considerations when it comes to assessing potential security assistance requirements (Defense Daily, Nov. 29).
“When it comes to certain capabilities like Patriot missiles or M1 tanks or advanced fighter aircraft, you’re talking about a pretty significant maintenance and sustainment tail as well as a training tail on those things. So none of these systems are plug-and-play. You can’t just show up on the battlefield and start using them. And so, those are the kinds of things that are taken into account when it comes to more advanced systems,” Ryder told reporters at the time.
Colin Kahl, under secretary of defense for policy, also addressed the fighter jet question in September and said that while no final decisions have been made, the potential to deliver such platforms to Ukraine in the future “remain[s] on the table” (Defense Daily, Sept. 21 2022).
“As it relates to future aircraft, fourth-generation aircraft for example, even if we were to provide those now they wouldn’t arrive for years,” Kahl said at the time. “I can tell you that fighter aircraft remain on the table, just no final decisions have been made about that.”
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in July said the U.S. may be open to providing older platforms to Ukraine, including A-10 close air support planes.
“Older U.S. systems are a possibility. As Ukraine, which is pretty busy dealing with a ‘right now’ problem, tries to sort out what its future will be longer term, we’ll be open to discussions with them about what their requirements are and how we might satisfy them,” Kendall said during a discussion at the Aspen Security Forum.