US President Joe Biden has stated he’s at present ruling out the supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine amid its battle with Russia.

Biden was requested to touch upon growing calls from Ukrainian chief Vladimir Zelensky for Western-made warplanes to be provided to Kiev throughout his interview with ABC on Friday.

“Look, we’re sending him what our seasoned army thinks he wants now. He wants tanks. He wants artillery. He wants air protection, together with one other HIMARS [multiple rocket launcher,]” the US president stated.

These American weapons are meant to place Ukraine “ready to have the ability to make beneficial properties this spring and this summer time going into the autumn,” he defined.

“[Zelensky] doesn’t want F-16s now. There isn’t a foundation upon which there’s a rationale, based on our army, now, to supply F-16s,” Biden stated.

Nonetheless, he added that Washington has no method of realizing what Kiev may want in “a yr, or two, or three from now.”

Interviewer David Muir pressed the president on the problem, asking if he was ruling the availability of jets sooner or later.

“I’m ruling it out, for now,” he responded.

On Saturday, Biden declined to reply questions from reporters about what he advised Zelensky concerning F-16s throughout his go to to Kiev earlier this week. “Properly, that’s a non-public dialogue,” he stated earlier than boarding his helicopter.

US Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan advised CNN on Thursday that fighter jets “should not the important thing functionality” the Ukrainian army wants in the intervening time. “F-16s are a query for the long-term protection of Ukraine and that’s a dialog that President Biden and President Zelensky had,” Sullivan stated.

British protection minister Ben Wallace stated on Friday that London was additionally “not going to ship our personal Hurricane jets within the brief time period to Ukraine.”

Russia has lengthy decried deliveries of arms to Kiev by the US, EU, UK and others, arguing that they solely lengthen the preventing with out altering its end result. These deliveries and different types of help offered to Kiev have de facto already made Western nations events to the battle, based on Moscow.

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