Ukraine Got Tanks. Now It Needs Jets.
With the promise of tanks from its western allies now secured, Ukraine is pushing for a different piece of military equipment: fighter jets.
The United States and United Kingdom so far remain unmoved on the issue of whether to provide warplanes to Ukraine. Asked earlier this week if Washington would provide F-16s to Kyiv, U.S. President Joe Biden said simply, “no.” He said Tuesday that he would remain in contact with Ukrainians about weapons requests. The United Kingdom also said that western jets were “sophisticated pieces of equipment” and that it was not “practical” to send them to Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, said that “nothing was excluded in principle,” but that any potential delivery would have to “not be escalatory.”
Poland and the Baltic states support the sending of fighter jets.
“Ukraine needs fighter jets … missiles, tanks. We need to act,” Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said at a press conference in Riga.
Of Biden’s “no,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said, “All types of help first passed through the ‘no’ stage,” he said. “Which only means ‘no’ at today’s given moment. The second stage is, ‘Let’s talk and study technical possibilities.’ The third stage is, ‘Let’s get your personnel trained.’ And the fourth stage is the transfer (of equipment).”
Even without the planes, Ukraine and its allies are dealing with the complicated reality of mismatched equipment, which comes with different training needs and maintenance demands. Another American concern with sending F-16s in particular is thought to, at least in part, stem from the concern that, since the planes could theoretically be used to hit targets inside Russia, transferring them could be seen as a serious escalation.