Top US general says Ukraine to get F-16 jets soon
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said he had received pledges from Denmark and the Netherlands to deliver F-16s.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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AMMAN – The United States’ top general said on Thursday that Ukraine was likely to get F-16 fighter jets soon, and said its counter-offensive against the Russian invasion
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said it was too early to say whether the counter-offensive had failed.
“F-16s. That is moving forward, actually. So there’s a training programme in place and they’ll likely receive F-16s ... in the not-too-distant future,” Mr Milley said in an exclusive interview with Jordan’s Al-Mamlaka public service TV news channel.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said he had received pledges from Denmark and the Netherlands to deliver F-16s,
Mr Milley said the counter-offensive faced heavy Russian reinforcements with many months to prepare minefields, tank ditches and dragon’s teeth tank obstacles “in a very complex set of defensive preparations that the Ukrainians are fighting through”.
“The Ukrainians have a significant amount of combat power remaining; this is not over yet,” he said. “So I think it’s frankly too early to say whether it (has) succeeded or failed.”
“Clearly it’s had partial success to date. Now the speed at which the offensive has been undertaking is slower than the planners had thought,” he added in the interview in Amman.
Ukrainian forces were being trained intensively in various parts of Europe on “command and control of offensive formations and combined arms manoeuvre and to break complex obstacles that will bolster its capabilities”, the four-star US Army general said.
“Again, it’s bloody, it’s long and it’s slow. And we had predicted that several months ago,” he said.
Washington was still deliberating providing long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems known as ATACMS that Ukraine wants and which reach behind enemy lines, including Russia, Mr Milley told Al-Mamlaka.
“They’ve gotten long-range artillery with the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System and the Brits have provided other types of capabilities that other countries have as well. So they’ve gotten a lot of artillery,” he said.
“But the ATACMS is a controversial topic. And for a lot of reasons, they haven’t received those yet. They’re still on the table. President Biden has not said no or yes at this time,” Mr Milley said.
Mr Milley, who is slated to retire later in 2023, again cautioned against the likelihood of an outright Ukrainian military victory in the near term while highlighting the possibility of a political solution to end the fighting.
“It’s an offensive that has been going on for about, I guess, eight weeks or so. It’s very bloody, slow, high casualty-producing and it’s very difficult. So the idea of militarily kicking out two or three hundred thousand Russian troops is going to be very difficult and challenging.
“A different way of getting out of this is through negotiations and maybe that will happen too.”
Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US will begin flight training for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets in October.
The training will begin after the pilots receive English-language training in September, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said. The flight training will take place in Arizona, he added. REUTERS
