After Germany, President Biden said the United States Would Not Send Fighter Jets for Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelensky with President Joe Biden. (Twitter/@POTUS)

JAKARTA - The United States will not provide Ukraine with the F-16 fighter jets it needs in its fight against Russia, President Joe Biden said Monday, as Russian troops claimed a string of advances on the country's eastern battlefields.

Ukraine plans to acquire Western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the F-16, after securing supplies of main battle tanks last week, an adviser to Ukraine's defense minister said Friday.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian air force said it would take its pilots about half a year to train on such a fighter.

Asked whether the United States would provide the jets, President Biden told reporters at the White House, "No."

Last weekend, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also confirmed that his country would not send fighter jets to Ukraine, following Kyiv's request for more sophisticated weapons from the West.

"I can only advise against getting involved in a constant bidding war in terms of weapons systems," Chancellor Scholz told the Tagesspiegel newspaper, as quoted by The National News.

"If, as soon as the decision (about the tanks) is made, the next debate starts in Germany, it is not taken seriously and undermines the confidence of citizens in the government's decision," he continued.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Berlin and Washington for agreeing to deliver main battle tanks (MBTs), with the United States delivering 31 M1 Abrams MBTs, which he hailed as a breakthrough in efforts to support the war-torn country.

Illustration of F-16 fighter jet. (Wikimedia Commons/Staff Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby)

Meanwhile, after weeks of heated debate and mounting pressure from allies, Chancellor Scholz approved the delivery of 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allowed other European countries to send their own.

But President Zelensky stressed Ukraine needed more heavy weapons from its NATO allies to fend off Russian attacks, including fighter jets and long-range missiles.

Chancellor Scholz warned of the risk of escalation, after Moscow strongly condemned the West's decision to send battle tanks to Kyiv.

Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was beginning to take revenge for Ukraine's resistance to invasion with relentless attacks in the east.

President Zelensky has been warning for weeks that Moscow aims to step up its offensive in Ukraine, after about two months of virtual stalemate along a front stretching across the south and east.

"The next big hurdle now is fighter jets," Yuriy Sak, adviser to Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said last Friday.

While there was no sign of a new, broader Russian offensive, the administrator of the Russian-controlled Donetsk Province Denis Pushilin, said Russian troops had secured a foothold in Vuhledar, a coal mining town whose ruins have been a stronghold of Ukraine since the start of the war.

President Zelensky said Russia's attacks in the east were relentless despite their heavy casualties, making the offensive payback for Ukraine's success in pushing Russian troops back from the capital, northeast, and south at the start of the conflict.

"I think Russia really wants a big revenge. I think they (already) started," President Zelensky told reporters in the southern port city of Odesa.

It is known that hundreds of modern tanks and armored vehicles promised to Ukraine by Western countries in recent weeks for counteroffensives, took several months to arrive and be ready for use on the battlefield.

This meant that Kyiv had to fight its way through the winter in what both sides described as perpetual warfare.