NATO sends F-16 jets to Ukraine amid Biden-Led summit

• President Joe Biden, despite being 81, aims to rally the West and reassure US voters.
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the importance of a strong Ukraine for peace.
• Ukraine seeks assurances that it will one day join NATO, which treats an attack on any member as an attack on all.

NATO allies announced Wednesday that they had begun the long-promised transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine, as leaders gathered for a summit in Washington amid political uncertainties in the United States.

Amid the pomp of the three-day event in the US capital, President Joe Biden aims to rally the West and reassure US voters that, despite being 81 — six years older than the alliance — he remains fit for the job, even as he faces intense pre-election scrutiny.

Biden kicked off events for the 32-nation alliance with a celebration Tuesday evening, committing a new air defense system for Kyiv and urging unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the Ukraine invasion in 2022.

“Make no mistake. Ukraine can — and will — stop Putin,” Biden said in a forceful speech.

The White House announced Wednesday that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending F-16 jets to Ukraine. Last year, Biden approved Ukraine’s key request for advanced Western aircraft to help the country achieve parity in the skies with Russia.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the F-16 transfer “concentrates Vladimir Putin’s mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine, he will not outlast us and, if he persists, the damage that will continue to be done to Russia and its interests will only deepen.”

“The quickest way to get to peace is through a strong Ukraine,” Blinken said.

However, Donald Trump, who is leading Biden in recent polls, has suggested a quick peace settlement by forcing Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia. The Republican mogul has repeatedly questioned NATO’s utility, viewing it as an unfair burden on the United States, despite its formation in 1949 as a collective defense against Moscow.

On the eve of the summit, Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv, where a children’s hospital was reduced to debris. Biden invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the summit, where Zelensky expressed gratitude for the F-16s, stating they would better protect his country from such “brutal Russian attacks.”

The new aircraft will “bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail everywhere and at any time,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

The summit will seek ways to “Trump-proof” the alliance, including having NATO itself take over the coordination of arms delivery from the United States. Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also pushed for a pledge to maintain the current rate of arms supply — approximately 40 billion euros ($43 billion) annually — that NATO members have been providing since Russia’s invasion.

“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the US elections, the US will remain a strong and staunch NATO ally,” Stoltenberg said as leaders gathered for the summit.

Biden has also invited four key Pacific partners — Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand — as he aims to increase NATO’s role in managing a rising China. Ukraine seeks firm assurances that it will one day join NATO, which treats an attack on any member as an attack on all.

A NATO diplomat stated that negotiations had concluded with a statement supporting Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” Kyiv’s membership enjoys strong support from Baltic and Eastern European nations, which are still haunted by decades under Soviet rule.

But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led the opposition, expressing concerns that the alliance would effectively be entering war with nuclear-armed Russia, which occupies swathes of Ukraine.

Zelensky, who has achieved hero status in much of the West for his media-savvy defiance of Russia, openly voiced annoyance at the last NATO summit in Lithuania due to the failure to provide a clearer path to membership.

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