America’s F-16 fighter jets ought to stay within the nation and never be despatched to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden mentioned on Monday. Earlier, he signaled that Washington has no plans to ship the warplanes to Kiev amid the battle with Moscow.
Chatting with reporters on the White Home South Garden, Biden was requested to elucidate why he’s towards F-16 deliveries for Ukraine. “As a result of we must always hold them right here. That’s a very totally different scenario,” he replied, with out elaborating.
His remarks come after the US agreed final month to ship 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, together with a few of Washington’s allies which agreed to ship fashionable battle tanks as nicely. Across the similar time, nevertheless, Biden dismissed the concept of sending F-16s to Kiev.
His refusal, nevertheless, doesn’t remove the chance that Washington may approve the re-export of the warplanes from different international locations. In an interview with the Monetary Occasions final month, a senior government with Lockheed Martin, which produces F-16s, mentioned that there’s “a whole lot of dialog about third get together switch of F-16s” to Ukraine.
In an interview on Monday, Polish Protection Minister Mariusz Blaszczak was requested whether or not Warsaw will hand over its F-16 jets to Ukraine. He replied: “we’ve too few of them, solely 48.” This comes after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki mentioned he’s open to deliveries of warplanes, however provided that this can be a “choice of the entire of NATO.”
Russia has repeatedly warned the West towards supplying Ukraine with weapons, arguing that it’s going to solely delay the battle. Final week, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov mentioned that with Kiev receiving new arms shipments, Russia “would double down on utilizing its present potential to reply.”
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