National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday the U.S. is “moving rapidly” to get F-16 Vipers to Ukraine. F-16s can carry nuclear warheads.
“We are going to push as fast as possible,” Sullivan said during remarks at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colo, according to Politico.
[Aspen is an Institute for very wealthy leftists who live in an echo chamber. They are among the elites telling us what to do.]
“Now look, the F-16s will get there probably towards the end of the year,” John Kirby, National Security Council spokesman, told Fox News on Thursday. “But it’s not our assessment that the F-16s alone would be enough to turn the tide here.”
Ukraine and eleven other nations have a plan to train pilots on the Vipers.
The F-16 training initiative is something that has gathered serious momentum in recent weeks, with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark all having indicated that they were willing to participate.
The real problem is minefields. It’s not air power. Now, having said that just do a quick math. Ten F-16s cost $2 billion. The Russians have hundreds of 4th and 5th-generation aircraft. If they try to catch up with the Russians 1:1 or even 2:1, then this is a large number of aircraft. It will take years to train pilots, years to maintain, and years to create such financial support. We are talking about many more billions of dollars that have already been directed.”
Watch:
When training Ukrainians to fly F-16s was broached, Russia raised the question of NATO’s involvement.
Russia’s Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, brought up the issue.
“There is no infrastructure for the operation of the F-16 in Ukraine, and the needed number of pilots and maintenance personnel is not there either,” Antonov said in remarks published on the embassy’s Telegram messaging channel on Monday.
“What will happen if the American fighters take off from NATO airfields, controlled by foreign ‘volunteers’?”