The president of the United States, Joe Biden, assured this Monday that his country will not send F-16 fighters to Ukraine, despite kyiv’s requests for combat aircraft to face the Russian invasion.
Biden was peremptory in answering “no” to a question from a White House journalist about his intention to supply the fighter jets requested by kyiv.
Reinforcing the Air Force with fourth-generation combat aircraft such as the US F-16 has become a priority task for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who on January 26, in his usual evening speech, stressed that “the aggression Russian can and must be stopped with adequate weapons”.
The deputy adviser for National Security of the United States, Jon Finer, said, a day later, that Washington did not exclude the supply to Ukraine of “any specific weapons system”.
“We are going to study it in depth,” he stressed, at the time, to the American television channel MSNBC, when questioned about Ukraine’s request for F-16 fighters.
The United States announced in January that it will send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and immediately begin training Ukrainian soldiers in their use and maintenance in a third country.
These tanks, which according to Biden are the most effective in the world, will take months to reach Ukraine and will be accompanied by armored recovery vehicles called M88, which will support them.
Also on Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured that Germany will not send fighter jets to Ukraine. After several weeks of hesitation, Berlin decided on Wednesday to send 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow other European countries to supply similar tanks to kyiv.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that “nothing is prohibited in principle” when asked in The Hague about the possibility of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine.
The military offensive launched on February 24, 2022 by Russia in Ukraine has so far caused the flight of more than 14 million people -6.5 million internally displaced persons and almost eight million to European countries-, according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Right now, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the wider international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing Russia from the political point of view and economic sanctions.
The UN presented 7,110 civilian deaths and 11,547 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, emphasizing that these figures are far below the real ones.
Source: TSF
