Pentagon backtracks on claim of aircraft supplies to Kiev
No nation has sent any fighter jets to Ukraine, Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby admitted on Wednesday as he apologized for having created a false “impression” and retracting an earlier statement from the US Defense Department on arms supplies to Kiev.
“I was mistaken,” Kirby said, adding that, although he did not say that “Ukraine had received ‘whole aircraft’,” that was “the impression that I gave you.” The spokesman has explained that he himself got a misguided impression about another nation following through with its offer to provide Ukraine with “whole fixed-wing aircraft.”
“It has not. So, I was in error in saying that, in past tense, they had been given whole aircraft. I regret the error,” Kirby added.