WASHINGTON, D.C.: US President Joe Biden told G7 leaders that Washington will support providing advanced warplanes including F-16s to Ukraine and will back efforts to train Kyiv's pilots, a senior White House official said Friday.
The US move signals a major breakthrough for Kyiv, which has repeatedly — and until recently unsuccessfully — pushed its Western supporters to agree to provide high-tech jets as it fights to fend off Russia's invasion.
A US air force F16 fighter jet taxis past parked Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific passenger planes during the US-Philippines air force joint military exercise dubbed Cope Thunder at the former US air base Clark air base in Angeles City, Pampanga province, north of Manila on May 9, 2023. Any decision to send F16 fighter jets to Ukraine will fall on the White House, the UK and German defence ministers said on May 17, 2023, despite a jet coalition announced by Britain and the Netherlands this week. This is up to the White House to decide whether it wants to release that technology, British Defence Minister Ben Wallace said after talks with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius in Berlin. Photo by TED ALJIBE / AFP
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