US President Joe Biden has not yet made a final decision on whether the United States itself will transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, or whether allies will do it. Such a statement made the White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

“I think given the numbers [of F-16s] that are currently available from the stocks of our European allies, and the fact that based on the money Congress has given us, there are so many other priorities for systems to give, it may be that we focus more on third party transfer, but the president has not made a final decision.

The US previously refused to provide fighter jets to Ukraine because they were not critically important to the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, but conditions are changing.

The US has mobilised an exceptional effort to deliver on time and in full everything Ukraine needs to launch this counteroffensive. Now that we’ve done that, we can look forward to the long-term capacity of Ukraine to be able to defend itself and deter Russian aggression. Fourth-generation fighter aircraft, Western fighter aircraft, F-16s are relevant to that fight”, - said Sullivan.