After the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, Austin held a joint press conference with the US Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley.
Noting that they talked about some critical capability gaps of the Ukrainian army at the meeting, Austin said, “Ukraine’s most urgent need is land-based air defense capability. This Contact Group will continue to work hard for Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace.” said.
Expressing that the issue of providing F-16 fighter aircraft training to Ukrainian pilots was also discussed, the US Minister said that the Netherlands and Denmark will lead the European coalition formed for the training that will begin in the coming weeks.
Noting that the two countries will develop a training program in contact with the USA and its allies, Austin said, “Norway, Belgium, Portugal and Poland offered to contribute to education. We expect more countries to participate in this important initiative.” he said.
“UKRAINE’S AIRSPACE IS VERY DIFFICULT”
Asked why the US is now accepting the idea of giving fighter jets to Ukraine, which it opposed before, Austin said, “Ukrainian airspace is still a very difficult airspace. Therefore, we focused on Ukraine’s protection of itself, its infrastructure and its people, its air defense capability That’s why we emphasized it.” gave the answer.
The US Minister stated that they have given weapons and equipment to Ukraine to equip 9 brigades, that this is more than the ground power of many Western armies, and now they have decided to train F-16s to increase Ukraine’s force capacity.
On the other hand, Austin said that Ukraine inflicted significant losses on Russia and that the support given to Ukraine was given to ultimately win the war.
“F-16 IS NOT A MAGIC WEAPON”
Responding to the same question, US Chief of Staff Milley pointed out that the control of the airspace is the main issue and said, “Ukraine has effectively demonstrated in the last year and a half that the fastest and cheapest way to protect its airspace is to conduct air defense from the ground.” said.
Explaining that for this reason, the USA primarily provides integrated, low-altitude, short-range, mid-altitude, mid-range, high-altitude and high-range defense systems, Milley continued:
“If we look at the F-16, the cost of 10 F-16s is 1 billion dollars. If we consider that 1 billion dollars will be spent for maintenance and maintenance, we will have spent 2 billion dollars for 10 aircraft. “There’s a third generation plane. If you go up against Russia in the air, you’re going to need a very significant number of 4th and 5th generation planes. If you look at the cost and analysis, what we did was the smartest thing to do.”
Milley also stated that there is no magic weapon in war, “The F-16 is not a magic weapon. Sometimes some weapons are labeled as a magic weapon, but there is no magic weapon.” he said.
Pointing out that Ukraine has effectively used all the weapon systems supplied to date, Milley said that they will also use the F-16s effectively in the near future. the
Photo: Reuters
