The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russian invaders as soon as pilot training is completed, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

“I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors […] It remains critical that Ukraine is able to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression and violation of its sovereignty” said Blinken.

Will this solidify a Ukrainian victory?

U.S. officials have privately said that F-16 jets would have been of little help to Ukraine in its current counteroffensive and will not be a game changer when they eventually arrive given Russian air defense systems and contested skies over Ukraine

Or will Russian radar and missle systems tear them up?

  • Dolores [love/loves]English
    -1•1 year ago

    europeans insisting they’re independent countries but they need Uncle Sam’s permission to send their own military hardware anywhere 🤔

    • @CMDR_Horn@lemmy.ml
      29•1 year ago

      Still contains secrets that the US doesn’t want to fall in to the hands of her enemies. I’m sure part of the purchasing agreement is non-transfer clauses and the such to limit the risk. That said Ukraine should’ve had access to these last year

    • Hyperreality
      19•1 year ago

      Sorry, but I’m going to be blunt. This is an ill informed comment. This is in fact normal with most weapons sales. For example:

      https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swiss-government-refuses-re-export-arms-ukraine-2023-03-10/

      By your logic, Denmark, Germany and Spain aren’t independent of Switzerland, simply because they were able to refuse reexport. But of course that’s nonsense. It’s just that arms and weapons contract invariably include clauses which prohibit reexport without permission of the country of origin. To not include these clauses would make weapons trafficking far too easy. Simply export to a second country which isn’t on the sanctions list, then have them re-export to another country, then another country, then another country, then North Korea or wherever because the second to final country doesn’t have laws that prohibit it or has insufficient checks.

      In this case, the US doing it publically bolsters US allies. The US has publicly said it’s ok, so that if shit hits the fan, the US can’t say “we didn’t approve of this weapons sale, so it’s their own problem”.

      Also, don’t forget that the F16 is used as a delivery mechanism for nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing, so it’s not a crate of automatic rifles. It’s a serious escalation, given the Russians can never be entirely sure that the Ukrainian F16 flying towards their border isn’t actually a Dutch F16 armed with nukes. In the case of the Netherlands the B61 with a yield of 300 kilotons of which IRC they have 200 of at their disposal if shit hits the fan. The US really isn’t the bad guy for including stringent conditions on the reexport of a plane potentially capable of nuking Moscow.

      TLDR The US may have undue influence on smaller NATO members, but this really isn’t a good example of that.

      • Ooops
        8•1 year ago

        By your logic, Denmark, Germany and Spain aren’t independent of Switzerland

        By his logic the US isn’t independent of Norway because they couldn’t send NASAMS to Ukraine without approval…

        So his “logic” might just be bullshit.

      • Madison_rogue
        0•1 year ago

        Since it’s an arms deals via NATO, with weapons provided by the U.S., it seems fairly obvious the terms of the treaty include consent and/or approval when repurposing arms to non-member states.

    • Ooops
      15•1 year ago

      Welcome to the real world where US jets can’t be re-exported without the US’ approval, where nobody can re-export Isreali-build missiles without Israel’s approval, where Switzerland blocks the delivery of ammunition produced by a Swiss company or where Estonia couldn’t even send old howitzers to Ukraine without Germany’s approval although those were actually soviet-build and only for a short time owned by Germany (via ex-GDR stocks)…

      This has exactly zero to do with the US or Europe but with the internationally agreed terms of arms export that absolutely everyone agreed upon… or most arms trade would mostly cease to exist.

      But that’s okay… we can live with the US being dependent on Europeans to send NASAMS to Ukraine and having to ask for approval first.

      But nice atttempt at trolling…

    • Lols [they/them]
      7•1 year ago

      europeans do not need uncle sams permission to send their own military hardware anywhere, they need uncle sams permission to send US patented and classified materials anywhere

      similar to how the US needs permission to send [european country here]'s patented and classified materials anywhere

      • @sunbeam60@lemmy.one
        2•1 year ago

        Correct! If the US wanted to send a batch of their NSMs to another country, sure as shit Norway would need to approve first.

        It’s got zero to do with European independence and everything to do with how a purchasing contract is set up.