Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has "categorically assured" his US counterpart Joe Biden that the F-16 fighter jets that will be supplied to Kiev will not attack Russian territory, Joe Biden said Sunday.
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The US leader, speaking at the end of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on Friday gave the green light for other allied countries to provide Ukraine with the US-made fighter jets that Kiev has long demanded.
Washington will now support a joint initiative by its allies to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s. During the training, which is expected to take months, Westerners will decide on the timing of the delivery of the planes, their number and the countries that will provide them.
The White House, however, assured that the American doctrine had "not changed". Even with military aid now extended to fighter jets, "the United States does not facilitate, nor does it support, attacks on Russian soil." "The Ukrainians have consistently indicated that they are prepared to respect this position," Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden's national security adviser, said Saturday.