USA will not send contractors to maintain Ukrainian F-16s WSJ

Washington fears that the Americans could become a target of Russian forces, a US official told the news agency

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has rejected Pentagon plans to send American contractors to Ukraine to maintain Western equipment, including F-16 fighter jets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials in Washington.

The long-running debate over sending American civilians to Ukraine to maintain equipment supplied to Kyiv by foreign donors has intensified since the delivery of the first six F-16 bombers to Ukraine in late July, the media said in an article on Friday.

The White House National Security Council reviewed the military’s proposal but deemed it too risky, officials familiar with the discussion told the WSJ.

“Intelligence agencies have expressed concern that Russia may target American contractors in Ukraine,” one of the sources told the news agency.

The Biden administration has not completely ruled out sending American contractors to Ukraine, but this will not happen in the near future, the report said.

For the time being, Washington expects its NATO allies in Europe to assume responsibility for maintaining the jets developed in the United States, it said.

The Netherlands, which together with Norway, Denmark and Belgium have promised to supply Kyiv with more than 80 F-16 fighter jets, has already announced that it will finance a private contract between a civilian maintenance company and the Ukrainian Air Force.

“We are supporting the Ukrainian government financially to conclude these contracts with private partners to see if they can keep the aircraft operational in the future,” General Onno Eichelsheim, the Dutch defense minister, said on Wednesday.

The WSJ noted that Ukraine has previously struggled to maintain other U.S.-supplied weapons, such as the Abrams M1 tank, which had to be shipped out of the country for repairs. The paper pointed out that an F-16 requires “hours of service for every hour of flight,” with dozens of support personnel typically working on each aircraft.

Earlier this week, Kyiv confirmed the loss of its first F-16, which reportedly crashed on Monday, killing the pilot. Ukrainian media reported that investigators were looking into technical problems and pilot error as possible causes of the accident. However, MP Mariana Bezuglaya claimed the plane was shot down by “friendly fire” from one of the US-donated Patriot air defense systems. Russian reports said the F-16 may have been destroyed on the ground by an Iskander missile during an attack on an airfield in western Ukraine.

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the F-16s’ use in the conflict would make them a “legitimate target” for Russian forces. He warned that the planes would even be attacked at airfields in NATO countries if they operated from there.

(RT.com)