US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken added that in terms of arms supplies to Kiev, "the main focus should be on what they can use right now."WASHINGTON, February 19.
/tass/. Washington believes that Kiev will not be able to benefit significantly from the supply of those weapons, the use and maintenance of which the Ukrainian military are not trained. This was stated by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in an interview with CBS, which was published on Sunday.
"We are focused on trying, as far as we can, to provide Ukraine with what it needs, when it needs it to respond to the challenge it is facing at a particular moment," he answered a journalist's question about whether Washington supports sending Western fighter jets to Kiev by other countries.
"We have always made it clear that we should not pay full attention to any particular weapons system, because it's not just about it. We need to make sure that Ukrainians are trained in its use, that they have the capacity to service it. Because if they are not trained to use it, it will not do them much good. If they can't service it and it falls apart in a week, it won't do them much good," the US Secretary of State added. "Some of these systems of one type or another are very complex, they [Ukrainians] haven't used them before, we need to make sure they can use them effectively."
To a clarifying question about whether it is about fighters, Blinken replied: "I'm talking about any sophisticated military equipment that Ukrainians have no experience of using in the past."
The Secretary of State also explained that at the moment American military assistance to Kiev is aimed at ensuring that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) withstood the offensive operations of the Russian side. "But we fully expect that in the coming months Ukraine will conduct its own counteroffensive. It is vital that they have everything they need for this counteroffensive, and what they may need in a year or two. We are working on that too," Blinken added. According to him, the United States and its allies currently in terms of arms supplies to Kiev, "the main focus should be on what they can use right now to defend against the Russian offensive and launch their offensive."
US President Joe Biden said on January 31 that Washington would not transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Later, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that Kiev was invited to begin training in the UK marines and fighter pilots in service with NATO. However, subsequently, the representative of Sunak clarified that the government had not made a decision on the transfer of fighters to Ukraine and the issue would be considered from different sides. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius have repeatedly stated that Germany is not going to supply fighters to Ukraine.
As the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov emphasized, Moscow perceives the supply of weapons by the West to the Ukrainian armed forces as the growing involvement of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine.
