Posted on 07/15/2022 3:59:45 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
The United States may begin training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.
"Ukrainian pilots are going to be taught to fly F-15 and F-16 fighters in the USA. This amendment to the bill on the U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2023 was supported by the House of Representatives. It is planned to allocate $100 million for this," head of the Pesident’s Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram channel on Friday.
Ukraine
If this amendment survives, and Biden actually follows through, this would be a major change. Still, given how allergic this administration is to even providing 40-year-old MiG’s from other ex-Warsaw Pact countries, you gotta wonder. And this is just an amendment, not a bill that has passed. Most of these things are at the discretion of the President, much as Trump decided to send the Javelins to Ukraine where Obama did not, and Biden stalled for months, until it became clear that the Russian exercises on Ukraine’s border might be the prep for an invasion.
And this amendment is just for training. Biden would have to authorize the hardware out of the $40b already appropriated.
I would be interested to see how they fare.
For an experienced pilot already...that’s at least a year of training.
If, as it appears likely , the Russians take Slavyansk and Kramatorsk sometime in August, this “commitment” would be merely symbolic. It seems like a cynical move by the Biden administration, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
The Ukrainians are not angels. Let the EU give them flying lessons....and not with our planes. This is WAAAAAAy beyond what we should be doing.
I’m predicting a high level of aircraft casualty rates.
Whatever it takes to prolong the war.
They’ll send the idiots to Luke and they’ll forget to go home once their training ends.
This amendment made it out of the House Democrat’s Armed Services Committee.
But it is destined for oblivion.
Nobody has any F-15s or, especially F-16s to throw away anyway...even if it passed.
They are front line US/NATO platforms, making up the bulk of their air forces.
Game. Changer.
LOL, there won’t be a Ukraine soon.
The People who gave us COVID masks, experimental vaccines, and transsexual celebrations are now tinkering with nuclear war.
No more.
You can pay my part of the tax bill and increased inflation then
Generational arms race bonanza for Neocon/MI Complex, Inc. I thought we were working on limiting the Ukraine quagmire spending to $500B a day.
Yemak runs the country as the head of the Presidential Administration, an unelected position.
He is widely believed by the people of Ukraine and by his Russian background to be working for Russia and doing as much as he can to sabotage the Ukraine war effort.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kramatorsk_Machinebuilding_Factory
Another factory town. In the black.
There is a lot - a lot more to Ukraine than the Donbas
There are reports that Ukrainian born Israelis are fighting. Wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few might be F-16 pilots or support staff. Other Israeli elite units are thought be represented among the volunteers.
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