US fighter jets next on Ukraine’s wishlist

Poland is ready to send US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelensky urges the West to give his country more advanced weapons.

Friends carry the coffin of a Ukrainian soldier killed in the besieged eastern town of Bakhmut. Picture: AFP

Poland is ready to send US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelensky urges the West to give his country more advanced weapons including longer-range rockets and fighter aircraft.

However, the Poles are ­demanding full NATO approval and also will need permission from the US to send the planes, ­according to military export rules.

The Dutch government has also indicated that it would be prepared to send F-16s once it has received a formal request from Kyiv.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not rule out delivering fighter planes, but warned against the risk of escalation in the conflict.

“Nothing is excluded in principle,” he said after talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

However, Ukraine’s urgent ­request to the US for the same jets appears to have been put on ice, at least for the next few months, as NATO focuses on supplying 100 or more tanks. After giving its ­approval for 31 Abrams M1A2 tanks to be delivered to Ukraine, the US appears to be in no rush to supply fighter jets.

Ukrainian combat vehicles drive in a convoy through the Donetsk region in the east of the country. Picture: AFP

President Joe Biden on Monday said the US would not be sending its F-16 fighters to Ukraine.

Mr Biden confirmed he would visit Poland but “I don’t know when, though”, he told reporters at the White House.

A US defence source told The Times: “We remain committed to providing what they can use in the fight today, and on those items that require training we take that into consideration [as with the ­decision to send the Abrams tanks]. But does that mean we’re any closer to providing F-16s? No.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made clear that sending fighter aircraft is not on his agenda.

Despite almost daily calls from Kyiv to NATO in pursuit of more advanced kit, the focus in the US and elsewhere in the military ­alliance seems to be on what Ukraine needs to defend itself, not on converting Ukraine into a de facto member of NATO.

Having persuaded the Western allies to send tanks, Kyiv is so convinced that F-16s and other fighter jets will be next that the Ukrainian air force is engaged in upgrading runways to receive the aircraft.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, right, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in the city of Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine. Picture: AFP

Colonel Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, said last week: “The works are in progress in different regions of Ukraine with the support of the ministry of infrastructure, the ministry of defence and other government agencies to support us in the creation of this airfield network.”

He did not provide details of where the work was being carried out, but for Western fighter jets to be able to land and take off safely the surface of the runways need to be strengthened and improved, and possibly extended.

Making public that the runway work was being done was another addition to the extreme pressure being put on the US and other NATO members to provide modern fighter aircraft. So far Germany is the only member to have rejected the idea of sending fighter aircraft.

The US remains coy. It was ­reported in Politico last week that a group of Pentagon officials had been pushing for approval to send F-16s, one of the most agile and combat-experienced fighter aircraft in the world.

However, this is being viewed in Washington as just one of many lobbying moves to force the Biden administration into making an early decision on F-16s.

“Do people in this town want us to send these jets? Sure, but how influential they may be or how ­seriously they may be taken is another matter,” one source said.

The Times