US likely to send medium-range missiles for Ukraine’s F-16s

The U.S. is considering sending Ukraine a medium-range missile for its new F-16 fleet as part of a $375 million military aid package expected to be announced Monday.

The Joint Standoff Weapon, already used by the U.S. Air Force and Navy and a number of allies, can hit targets over 70 miles away, giving Ukraine a major upgrade to the weapons it’s using to strike Russian forces and allowing them to do it at safer distances.

The package, which is still being finalized according to two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the issue, will also include artillery munitions, rockets and air defense missiles. The people were granted anonymity to discuss the package ahead of the announcement and acknowledged that the contents could still change before the official announcement is made.

A State Department official declined to comment on a pending arms transfer. The Defense Department did not return a request for comment.

The $375 million will be the largest package the U.S. has sent Ukraine since May, and could be the last presidential drawdown of equipment before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Under authority granted by Congress, the U.S. pulls existing weapons from its stockpiles, and the money is meant to purchase replacement munitions and equipment.

The Pentagon is working with Congress to roll the remaining $5.8 billion left in the presidential drawdown authority over to the next fiscal year. No deal has been struck yet as lawmakers struggle to come up with a plan to avoid a government shutdown on Oct.1, which will occur if no stopgap funding measure is passed in time.

The new missiles, while not having the reach that Kyiv has been asking for, will still give Ukrainian pilots a powerful new weapon as their forces battle advancing Russian troops in the country’s east, where Ukrainian troops have been slowly losing ground.

The 70-plus-mile range would allow pilots to stay away from the front lines and Russian air defenses, giving Kyiv a new way to target those defenses and frontline weapons depots, complicating operations for Russian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the White House to allow his forces to use long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems and British-made Storm Shadows deeper inside Russia, to no avail. He is slated to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris next Friday at the White House, where he will present his plan to end the war, and where he is also expected to make his case for the missile restrictions to be lifted.

Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, and Andriy Yermak, senior adviser to Zelenskyy, came to Washington last month to present the administration with potential targets they would like to hit inside Russia with the U.S. and British missiles. The U.S. says that Russia has moved most of its aircraft and weapons depots out of the missiles’ range, but Ukrainian officials are still interested in targeting logistics and command-and-control centers closer to its border.

The U.S. and Denmark have been training Ukrainian pilots, but the numbers have been small due to the amount of qualified Ukrainian pilots available and open training slots.

Speaking with reporters at a conference in Washington this week, Gen. James Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa, said while there have been criticisms of the training, “it’s a very delicate balance to make sure we’re keeping all of our allies trained with pilots, and we’re also training Ukrainian pilots. We can’t just stop training all of the allies that we have and just focus strictly on Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian F-16 fleet suffered a major blow when one of its jets crashed in August during combat operations. Ukraine is still conducting an investigation into what happened, but the U.S. has not been invited to take part in that inquest.