US General Says Ukraine Won't Receive F-16 Fighter Jets Anytime Soon

The Biden administration has provided more than $15 billion in military assistance to Ukraine so far, including HIMARS, drones and armored vehicles. Moscow says that the West's arms supplies to Kiev further exacerbate the crisis and that such deliveries will be seen as legitimate targets for the Russian military.

US Air Forces in Europe and Africa Commander General James Hecker has stated that Ukraine will not receive F-16 multi-role fighters in the near future.

Speaking at the annual Air Force Association conference, Hecker said that the warplanes would not arrive in Ukraine for two to three years after any political decision was made to send them, due to training and logistical issues.

Referring to the ongoing Russian special military operation in Ukraine, the US general added that now at least, Kiev “has what they need to survive and fight and try to protect their sovereign country without turning this into World War III.”

The F-16 jet, which made its maiden flight back in 1974, is no longer being purchased by the US Air Force, even though improved versions are being built by Lockheed Martin for export.

Hecker’s remarks come after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last week that he was authorizing Washington’s “twenty-first drawdown of US arms and equipment for Ukraine since September 2021."

“This $600 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from US Department of Defense inventories. This drawdown will bring the total US military assistance for Ukraine to approximately $15.8 billion since the beginning of this Administration,” he added.

A number of US media outlets, including CNN and CBS News, meanwhile reported that billions of dollars of military aid that the US is sending to Ukraine does not always make it to the front lines. CNN cited unnamed sources as admitting earlier this year that there is a grave risk of American weaponry ending up in the hands of criminal and terrorist groups.

Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that providing Kiev with Western arms does not contribute to a resolution of the Ukraine conflict and will only have negative consequences.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told Newsweek in April that Western countries “directly” take part in Ukraine hostilities by "pumping" Kiev with weapons and ammunition, something that he said “provokes further bloodshed.”

He said that he West’s “dangerous and provocative” actions took aim at Russia and may lead Russia and the United States "to the path of direct military confrontation.”

Antonov warned that any supply of weapons and military equipment from the West, carried out through the territory of Ukraine, would be seen as a "legitimate military target" for the Russian armed forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov for his part stressed in an interview with the French TV channel LCI that although “there is resistance and material damage caused by the supply of these weapons [to Kiev from Western countries]”, the arms are “not enough to stop our advance, and it will not prevent us from achieving our goals.”

Russia launched a special operation to "demilitarize and de-­Nazify" Ukraine on February 24th following requests from the Donbass republics to protect them from Kiev. Western countries responded by slapping packages of sanctions on Moscow and intensifying their military aid to Kiev.