US Air Force sending ‘boneyard' F-16s to Ukraine for spare parts
The U.S. Air Force is pulling old and nonoperational F-16s out of its airplane graveyard known as 'the boneyard' to send to Ukraine for spare parts.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed the donated F-16s are coming from the service's 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The planes will be cannibalized for parts that Ukraine can use to keep their European-donated F-16s flying, but the service stressed the American F-16s have been gutted of key parts and couldn't be used operationally.
'The [Department of the Air Force] has supported the sustainment of European-donated F-16s to Ukraine by providing disused and completely nonoperational F-16s to Ukraine for parts,' the spokesperson said. 'These F-16s were retired from active U.S. use and are not flyable. Importantly, they lack critical components such as an engine or radar, and could not be reconstituted for operational use.'
The State Department also on Friday approved a possible foreign military sale to Ukraine, worth about $310.5 million, to sustain the besieged nation's F-16s and train its pilots and maintainers.
The sale includes spare parts and accessories, modifications and upgrades to the jets, ground handling equipment, publications and technical documents, software delivery and support, engineering, technical and logistics support and training for operations, maintenance and sustainment support.
The State Department said this will support the U.S.'s foreign policy goals and national security objectives 'by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe.'
The equipment and training sale will improve Ukraine's ability to defend itself by making sure its pilots are trained, the department said, and making it more interoperable with the U.S. through training with the Air Force.
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion, Ukraine has urged its Western allies to send it modern, fourth-generation fighters to modernize its air force and improve its ability to defend itself. When the war began in February 2022, Ukraine had at most 69 MiG-29 Fulcrum and Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker jets.
But the U.S. was initially hesitant to agree to Ukraine's requests. Top defense officials and some lawmakers said it was unclear whether jets such as the F-16 would provide Ukraine enough of an advantage, and the Pentagon instead focused first on providing other assets such as critical munitions.
Former President Joe Biden in August 2023 cleared the way for F-16s to go to Ukraine, with the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium either having already donated the jets or pledging to do so.
Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, told lawmakers in a hearing last month that F-16s have helped Ukraine shore up its defenses and that more jets are on the way.
'There are more F-16s prepared to be deployed in [Ukraine],' Cavoli told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 3. 'There are more pilots in the training pipeline. … The planes are active and they fly every day. They've defeated a large number of cruise missile threats and they've delivered an awful lot of offensive attacks as well' along Ukraine's eastern front.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
17 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Russia launches another large-scale drone and missile attack on Ukraine, killing 3 and wounding 13
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia attacked two Ukrainian cities with waves of drones and missiles early Tuesday, killing three people and wounding at least 13 in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called 'one of the biggest' strikes in the 3-year-old war. The attack struck Kyiv and the southern port city of Odesa. In an online statement, Zelensky said that Moscow's forces fired over 315 drones, most of them Shaheds, and seven missiles overnight. 'Russian missile and Shahed strikes are louder than the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,' Zelensky wrote, urging 'concrete action' from the U.S. and Europe in response to the attack. A maternity hospital and residential buildings in the southern port of Odesa were damaged in the attack, regional head Oleh Kiper said. Two people were killed and nine injured, according to the regional prosecutor's office. Another person was killed in Kyiv's Obolonskyi district, regional head Tymur Tkachenko wrote on Telegram. 'Russian strikes are once again hitting not military targets but the lives of ordinary people. This once again shows the true nature of what we are dealing with,' he said. Explosions and the buzzing of drones were heard around the city for hours. The fresh attacks came a day after Moscow launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Ukrainian and Western officials have been anticipating Moscow's response to Kyiv's audacious June 1 drone attack on distant Russian air bases. Russia has been launching a record number of drones and missiles in recent days, despite both sides trading memoranda at direct peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 that set out conditions for a potential ceasefire. However, the inclusion of clauses that both sides see as nonstarters make any quick deal unlikely, and a ceasefire, long sought by Kyiv, remains elusive. The only tangible outcome of the talks has been the exchange of prisoners of war, with a swap that began Monday for soldiers aged between 18 and 25. Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had received a second group of exchanged soldiers as part of the deal. Amina Ivanchenko was reunited Monday with her husband, a POW for 18 months, in the release of an initial group of Ukrainian soldiers. She said was grateful to Ukrainian officials for supporting her. 'My struggle was much easier thanks to them. Our country will definitely return everyone. Glory to Ukraine! Thank you!' Anastasia Nahorna waited in the Chernyhiv region to see if her husband, who has been missing for eight months, was among those being released in the latest swap. 'This pain is more unbearable every day,' she said. 'I really want to hear some news, because since the moment of his disappearance, unfortunately, there has been no information. Is he alive? or maybe in captivity? Has someone seen him?' she asked. Anna Rodionova, the wife of another Ukrainian POW, also was waiting. 'I just want him to come back soon and for this to all be over,' she said. 'We are tired of waiting, we come every exchange and he is not there.' A similar exchange was announced for the bodies of fallen soldiers held by both sides, although no schedule has been released. Asked to comment on the exchange of dead, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was unclear when it could take place and how many bodies Ukraine would hand over. He again accused Kyiv of dragging its feet on the exchange. 'There is one unarguable fact, we have had trucks with bodies standing ready for it on the border for several days,' he told reporters. Plumes of smoke rose in Kyiv as air defense forces worked to shoot down drones and missiles Tuesday. Viktoriia Melnyk, 30, vented her anger at the Russians after her building in the Obolonskyi district was struck by a drone. 'I want them to leave our territory, to leave us alone, to leave our families alone,' she said. 'Small children are dying. This is not normal. It's not normal that (the world) is turning away. This is not normal for the 21st century.' Mariia Pachapynska, the 26-year-old manager at a T-shirt company in the Obolonskiy district that produces T-shirts, decried that her facility was struck. 'There were military facilities here,' she said, noting that 'everything and half of me, half of my soul, burned down.' Seven out of 10 districts were damaged in the attack, according to Maryna Kotsupii of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, adding that 16-story and 25-story residential buildings were hit. Residents took shelter and slept in metro stations during the long attack, including Nina Nosivets, 32, and her 8-month-old son, Levko. 'I just try not to think about all this, silently curled up like a mouse, wait until it all passes, the attacks. Distract the child somehow because it's probably the hardest thing for him to bear,' she said. Krystyna Semak, 37, said she was scared by the explosions and ran to the metro at 2 a.m., carrying a rug. Fires broke out in at least four Kyiv districts after debris from downed drones fell onto residential buildings and warehouses, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. 'I was lying in bed, as always hoping that these Shaheds would fly past me, and I heard that Shahed (that hit the house),' said Vasyl Pesenko, 25, standing in his damaged kitchen. 'I thought that it would fly away, but it flew closer and closer and everything blew away.' The attack sparked 19 fires across Ukraine, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram. 'Russia must answer for every crime it commits. Until there is justice, there will be no security. For Ukraine. And for the world,' he said. The Russian Defense Ministry said an attack early Tuesday targeted arms plants in Kyiv, as well as military headquarters, troop locations, air bases and arms depots across Ukraine. 'The goals of the strikes have been achieved, all the designated targets have been hit,' it said in a statement. The death toll rose Tuesday from previous Russian strikes. In Kharkiv, rescuers found a body in the rubble of a building that was hit Saturday, Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram. The discovery brought the number of dead there to five, with five others potentially under the debris, Terekhov said. In the northern city of Sumy, a 17-year-old boy died of his injuries Tuesday after a June 3 attack, acting Mayor Artem Kobzar wrote on Telegram, bringing the number killed to six. The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing 102 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow illegally annexed from Kyiv in 2014. The drones were downed both over regions on the border and deeper inside Russia, including central Moscow and Leningrad regions, according to the Defense Ministry. Flights were temporarily restricted at multiple Russian airports, including all four in Moscow and the Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, the country's second-largest city. Stepanenko and Kullab write for the Associated Press. AP Journalist Illia Novikov contributed to this report.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Marines arrive in LA under Trump orders as protests spread to other cities
By Brad Brooks, Jorge Garcia, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Hundreds of U.S. Marines arrived in Los Angeles overnight and more were expected on Tuesday under orders from President Donald Trump, who has also activated 4,000 National Guard troops to quell protests despite objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom and other local leaders. The city has seen days of public outrage since the Trump administration launched a series of immigration raids on Friday, though local officials said the demonstrations on Monday were largely peaceful. About half of the roughly 700 Marines that Trump ordered to Los Angeles arrived on Monday night, and the remaining troops will enter the city on Tuesday, a U.S. official told Reuters. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told KABC that more than 100 people had been arrested on Monday but that the majority of protesters were nonviolent. Over the weekend, protesters threw rocks and other objects at officers and vehicles and set several cars ablaze. Police responded by firing projectiles like pepper balls as well as flash bang grenades and tear gas. Trump has justified his decision to deploy active military troops to Los Angeles by describing the protests as a violent occupation of the city, a characterization that Newsom and Bass have said is grossly exaggerated. Newsom said that Trump's deployment of National Guard troops has only inflamed the situation and made it more difficult for local law enforcement to respond to the demonstrations. In a statement on Monday, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the department had not been notified that any Marines were traveling to the city and that their possible arrival "presents a significant logistical and operational challenge" for police. Trump's decision to mobilize 700 Marines based in Southern California escalated his confrontation with Newsom, who filed a lawsuit on Monday asserting that Trump's deployment of Guard troops without the governor's consent was illegal. The Guard deployment was the first time in decades that a president activated the Guard absent a request from a sitting governor. While the Marines are only tasked with guarding federal property temporarily until the full contingent of 4,000 Guard troops arrives, the use of active military to respond to civil disturbances is extremely rare. "This isn't about public safety," Newsom wrote on X on Monday. "It's about stroking a dangerous President's ego." The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, said he was "gravely troubled" by Trump's deployment of active-duty Marines. "Since our nation's founding, the American people have been perfectly clear: we do not want the military conducting law enforcement on U.S. soil," he said. In a post on Tuesday morning on Truth Social, Trump claimed Los Angeles would be "burning to the ground right now" if he had not deployed troops to the city. DEMONSTRATIONS AND ARRESTS The raids are part of Trump's sweeping immigration crackdown, which Democrats and immigrant advocates have said are indiscriminately breaking up families. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pledged on Monday to carry out more operations to round up suspected immigration violators. Trump officials have branded the protests as lawless and blamed state and local Democrats for protecting undocumented immigrants with sanctuary cities. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered on Monday outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where immigrants have been held, chanting "free them all" and waving Mexican and Central American flags. National Guard forces formed a human barricade to keep people out of the building, and late on Monday, police began dispersing the crowd using gas canisters and arrested some protesters. At dusk, officers had running confrontations with protesters who had scattered into the Little Tokyo section of the city. As people watched from apartment patios above street level and as tourists huddled inside hotels, a large contingent of LAPD and officers and sheriff's deputies fired several flash bangs that boomed through side streets along with tear gas. Protests spread to neighboring Orange County on Monday night after immigration raids there, with demonstrators gathering at the Santa Ana Federal building, according to local officials and news reports. Protests also sprang up in at least nine other U.S. cities on Monday, including New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, according to local news reports. In Austin, Texas, police fired non-lethal munitions and detained several people as they clashed with a crowd of several hundred protesters.
20 minutes ago
UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway sanction 2 far-right Israeli Cabinet ministers
JERUSALEM -- Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway said Tuesday they have imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli government ministers for allegedly 'inciting extremist violence' against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich face asset freezes and travel bans from the five countries. The ministers are champions of expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The decision by Western governments friendly to Israel was a sharp rebuke of Israel's settlement policies in the West Bank and of settler violence, which has spiked since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war in the Gaza Strip. The five countries' foreign ministers said in a joint statement that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich 'have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous.' Israel's Foreign Ministry said earlier it had been informed of the sanctions. Smotrich, the country's finance minister, wrote on social media that he found out that Britain had decided to sanction him for obstructing the viability of a Palestinian state. 'We are determined to continue building,' he said. 'We overcame Pharoah, we'll overcome Starmer's Wall.' Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, wrote on social media. Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the move 'outrageous.' He said he had discussed it with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and they would meet next week to discuss Israel's response. The Biden administration took the rare step of sanctioning radical Israeli settlers implicated in violence in the occupied West Bank — sanctions that were then lifted by President Donald Trump. Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer who spent years campaigning for the sanctions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — along with violent West Bank settlers — described the move as 'historic.' 'It means the wall of immunity that Israeli politicians had has been broken," he said. 'It's unbelievable that it took so long for Western governments to sanction Israeli politicians, and the fact that it's being done while Trump is president is quite amazing,' said Mack. "It is a message to Netanyahu himself that he could be next." Israel captured the West Bank along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories for their hoped-for future state. Settlement growth and construction have been promoted by successive Israeli governments stretching back decades, but it has exploded under Netanyahu's far-right coalition, which has settlers in key Cabinet posts. There are now well over 100 settlements and 500,000 Israeli settlers sprawling across the territory from north to south — a reality, rights groups say, dimming any hopes for an eventual two-state solution.
