The US will arm the fleet of F-16s headed to Ukraine from other European countries with advanced, American-made weapon systems — solving a persistent worry about where munitions for the potentially game-changing fighter jets would come from.
Denmark, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands are slated to send about 80 of the fourth-generation fighters to the embattled country, which has for two years been desperately fighting off an invasion by Russia.
But it wasn’t clear whether the Pentagon planned to arm the planes.
“We are confident that we will be able to supply all of those [weapons], at least the critical volumes that they need,” a senior US official told the newspaper.
The Pentagon plans to send to Ukraine AGM-88 HARM air-to-ground missiles; small-diameter bombs that have a tight blast radius; and long-range versions of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which convert so-called “dumb” bombs into smart weapons.