Washington is concerned the Americans could be targeted by Russian forces, a US official has told the outlet
The Biden administration has rejected a Pentagon proposal to send American contractors to Ukraine to maintain Western military equipment, including F-16 fighter jets, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, citing US officials.
The debate over deploying US civilians to Ukraine to service the hardware provided by foreign allies has intensified since the delivery of the first six F-16s to Ukraine in late July, the Journal reported Friday.
The White House National Security Council considered the military’s proposal but deemed it too risky, officials familiar with the discussion told the WSJ.
“The intelligence community raised concerns over the prospect of Russia targeting American contractors in Ukraine,” one source told the publication.
The Biden administration hasn’t completely ruled out sending US contractors to Ukraine, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon, the report said.
For now, Washington expects its NATO allies in Europe to handle the maintenance of the US-designed jets, the report added.
The Netherlands, along with Norway, Denmark, and Belgium, has pledged to supply Ukraine with more than 80 F-16s. The Netherlands has already announced it will fund a private contract between a civilian maintenance company and the Ukrainian Air Force.
“We support the Ukrainian government financially to make those contracts with private partners to see if they can hold the aircraft up and running in the future,” General Onno Eichelsheim, the Dutch chief of defense, said Wednesday.
The WSJ noted that Ukraine has previously struggled to maintain other US-supplied weapons, such as the Abrams M1 tank, which had to be shipped outside the country for repairs. The outlet pointed out that an F-16 requires “hours of service for every hour of flight time,” with dozens of support personnel typically working on each plane.
Earlier this week, Kiev confirmed the loss of its first F-16, which reportedly crashed on Monday, killing its pilot. Ukrainian media said investigators were looking into technical problems and pilot error as possible causes of the accident. However, MP Mariana Bezuglaya claimed that the jet was shot down by “friendly fire” from one of Ukraine’s US-donated Patriot air defense systems. Russian reports said that the F-16 could have been destroyed on the ground by an Iskander missile during a strike on an airfield in western Ukraine.
In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the use of F-16s in the conflict would make them “a legitimate target” for Russian forces, warning that the planes would be struck even at airfields inside NATO countries if they operate from there.