Iran says drone attack targets defense facility in Isfahan

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, authorities said early Sunday, causing some damage at the plant amid heightened regional and international tensions engulfing the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian Defense Ministry offered no information on who it suspected carried out the attack, which came as a refinery fire separately broke out in the country’s northwest and a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck nearby, killing three people.

However, Tehran has been targeted in suspected Israeli drone strikes amid a shadow war with its Mideast rival as its nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. Meanwhile, tensions also remain high with neighboring Azerbaijan after a gunman attacked that country’s embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others.

Details on the Isfahan attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, remained scarce. A Defense Ministry statement described three drones being launched at the facility, with two of them successfully shot down. A third apparently made it through to strike the building, causing “minor damage” to its roof and wounding no one, the ministry said.

Iranian state television’s English-language arm, Press TV, aired mobile phone video apparently showing the moment that drone struck along the busy Imam Khomeini Expressway that heads northwest out of Isfahan, one of several ways for drivers to go to the holy city of Qom and Tehran, Iran’s capital. A small crowd stood gathered, drawn by anti-aircraft fire, watching as an explosion and sparks struck a dark building.

“Oh my God! That was a drone, wasn’t it?” the man filming shouts. “Yeah, it was a drone.”

Those there fled after the strike.

That footage of the strike, as well as footage of the aftermath analyzed by The Associated Press, corresponded to a site on Minoo Street in northwestern Isfahan that’s near a shopping center that includes a carpet and an electronics store.

Iranian defense and nuclear sites increasingly find themselves surrounded by commercial properties and residential neighborhoods as the country’s cities sprawl ever outward. Some locations as well remain incredibly opaque about what they produce, with only a sign bearing a Defense Ministry or paramilitary Revolutionary Guard logo.

The Defense Ministry only called the site a “workshop,” without elaborating on what it made. Isfahan, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Tehran, is home to both a large air base built for its fleet of American-made F-14 fighter jets and its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center.

The attack comes after Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in July claimed to have broken up a plot to target sensitive sites around Isfahan. A segment aired on Iranian state TV in October included purported confessions by alleged members of Komala, a Kurdish opposition party that is exiled from Iran and now lives in Iraq, that they planned to target a military aerospace facility in Isfahan after being trained by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.

Activists say Iranian state TV has aired hundreds of coerced confessions over the last decade. Israeli officials declined to comment on the attack.

Separately, Iran’s state TV said a fire broke out at an oil refinery in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It said the cause was not yet known, as it showed footage of firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze. Tabriz is some 520 kilometers (325 miles) northwest of Tehran.

State TV also said the magnitude 5.9 earthquake killed three people and injured 816 others in rural areas in West Azerbaijan province, damaging buildings in many villages.

Iran’s theocratic government faces challenges both at home and abroad as its nuclear program rapidly enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels since the collapse of its atomic accord with world powers.

Nationwide protests have shaken the country since the September death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman detained by the country’s morality police. Its rial currency has plummeted to new lows against the U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, Iran continues to arm Russia with the bomb-carrying drone that Moscow uses in attacks in Ukraine on power plants and civilian targets.

Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iran, including an April 2021 assault on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges. In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top military nuclear scientist.

Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country’s secret military units or its Mossad intelligence agency. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently re-entered the premiership, long has considered Iran to be the biggest threat his nation faces. The U.S. and Israel also just held their largest-ever military exercise amid the tensions with Iran.

Meanwhile, tensions remain high between Azerbaijan and Iran as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran also wants to maintain its 44-kilometer (27-mile) border with landlocked Armenia — something that could be threatened if Azerbaijan seizes new territory through warfare.

Iran in October launched a military exercise near the Azerbaijan border. Azerbaijan also maintains close ties to Israel, which has infuriated Iranian hard-liners, and has purchased Israeli-made drones for its military.

Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati diplomat, warned online that the Isfahan attack represented one more event in the “dangerous escalation the region is witnessing.” The United Arab Emirates was targeted in missile and drone attacks last year claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

It “is not in the interest of the region and its future,” Gargash wrote on Twitter. “Although the problems of the region are complex, there is no alternative to dialogue.”

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Rishi Sunak fires minister after tax investigation

Britain's prime minister acts after Whitehall probe finds "a serious breach of the ministerial code."

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Biden Appointees Are Looking for New Jobs — And the Market Is Hot

There’s good news for Biden appointees eyeing the exits: Unlike your predecessors from Donald Trump’s chaotic administration, you’re in demand in the private sector.

While the 46th president has presided over comparatively little turnover in his two up-and-down years in office, this month’s announcement that White House chief of staff Ron Klain would depart seemed to sound the starting gun on the period when insiders naturally start contemplating life on the outside. And though the scramble is only just starting, the prospects are much better than most people might have expected in the crisis environment of 2020.

How good? According to Lyles Carr, senior vice president at the McCormick Group, the largest independent executive-search firm based in Washington, the money can dwarf not just federal salaries, but also the sorts of salaries private-sector hirees were making 20 or 30 years ago. “If you’re the general counsel of the SEC, and you’re willing to go to a law firm, five million bucks,” he says by way of hypothetical. “Same thing with the general counsel or the deputy secretary of Treasury.”

Though it varies wildly by industry and subject of expertise, he says someone looking to maximize earned income (meaning, typically, a job in law or lobbying, since corporations tend to give a large chunk of compensation via equity) would be “certainly looking at the high six figures, low seven figures for the most relevant senior officials.”

That’s quite a change from the situation a couple years ago, when several Trump administration cabinet secretaries and other bigwigs had trouble landing high-end post-government jobs and activists talked about organizing to render other administration insiders unhireable. At the time, at least some people wondered if America’s political warfare was ending the bipartisan tradition of cashing in on government experience.

It turns out that once you remove the headlines about racism, the keystone-cops spectacles, and the constant public outrage, the revolving door will still spin just fine, thank you. The reasons for the rebound range from the prosaic (a lot of Biden appointees had lengthy Washington CVs even before signing on) to the historic (they don’t have to answer for things like an insurrection, which have a way of turning off PR-conscious employers).

But Biden veterans pondering a shot at the corporate job market can also credit their good fortune to some of the things the administration did that may have rankled prospective employers in the for-profit world: Regulatory pushes around things like antitrust or green technology can create bewildering new rules. Who better to help firms navigate opportunities and pitfalls than the folks who dreamed up the rules in the first place?

D.C. headhunters jokingly refer to this period of an administration as “government draft season” — the period when a team has been in place long enough for appointees to accrue meaningful credentials, but not so long that would-be departers could be accused of abandoning the cause as it gears up for reelection. Like NCAA standouts getting ready to go pro, they start putting together their bureaucratic sizzle reels just as employers start fantasizing about what new star could get them to the next level.

Curious about the state of this odd, venerable Beltway dance, I decided to call Carr, one of government draft season’s best-regarded Jerry Maguires — a 47-year veteran of the Washington cottage industry of connecting private-sector businesses with the folks who’ve been drawing paychecks from Uncle Sam.

Over the years, Carr has worked with cabinet secretaries and high-level career people from across government — and, naturally, with the law firms and corporate HR operations and board-of-directors search committees that might engage them. (The firms, not the candidates, typically pay headhunters, which is one reason folks in the industry tend to be hesitant when it comes to dropping specific names.)

Business, Carr says, is good.

“People coming out of this administration and the Hill are desirable again,” Carr says. A lot of them had better resumes in the first place, and the administration’s success at passing major legislation has added some luster. “There are quality people, and they’ll come back to the private sector now.”

This might be a departure from the last group, but it’s not particularly new — companies look to assemble bipartisan teams, hedge against the future, and navigate tricky agencies. What does change from era to era is just which sorts of government expertise are in highest demand. People with experience at Treasury or the SEC are perpetually in demand. Given the news of the past few years, it’s no surprise that healthcare experts are also going to be sought after.

And then there are areas that have been a particular subject of action in the administration, like antitrust or green technology. “Areas like transportation are swinging back to a level of importance — not paramount, but looking at the problems of the airlines, for instance, someone coming out of the FAA or the Department of Transportation is going to have options,” Carr tells me. “Same in areas like environment. This goes back to the regulatory aggressiveness of the administration in areas like environment and natural resources.”

“A current example is, international business regulation is high on the administration’s list. Think about things like export controls and anti-boycott,” newly prominent due to the sweeping sanctions against Russia. “So if you’re an international company or looking to work globally, particularly in the technology space, you now have all kinds of issues related to export control. Areas that were relevant prior to Ukraine are now front and center.”

It’s not all about the bureaucratic equivalent of bulldog prosecutors hanging out a shingle and taking on mobsters as clients. “It’s also to find where the money is,” Carr says. “So the infrastructure bill passed. The money for that is starting to flow. How do you tap into that?”

Washington, of course, has changed a great deal since Carr first got into the game in the 1970s — a much wealthier city, with a much more baroque industry of consultants and experts. Carr says the size of a raise a top official can expect on leaving government has gone up significantly over the years. But he says it’s less a function of government veterans being in higher demand (they’ve always been sought after) than a function of wage inflation at the top end of corporate America. Big shots who have zero government experience and get hired at companies or law firms in Dallas or Chicago are also getting paid a lot better than their counterparts were in the 1970s or 1980s.

If the resilience of the fed-to-corporate pipeline is a good sign for the capital’s troubled economy, what is it for the country? Just when you feel relieved about having a government full of folks that someone wants to hire, you remember that the perception of coziness between regulator and regulated is one reason anti-Washington politics has consumed America.

What’s interesting about being a Washington headhunter, though, is that so much of the task can be about creating a job for someone, rather than filling an existing one — a process that can feel exhilaratingly creative to mid- and late-career types contemplating a jump out of government. Carr winds up in the middle of these conversations since officials often can’t be talking to companies about jobs — but can, in theory, blue-sky with consultants about the kind of work that would make them happy. Companies, he says, are less interested in someone who can make trains run on time than someone who can tell them where to lay track.

“We’re the only people I think, who take people on and represent them as if we're their personal agent,” he says. “When we're on that side of the equation, probably 85 percent of the time, they go into a position that was created for them or restructured to fit.”

One story he tells involves a senior official who worked on anti-money laundering efforts — an area that generated a degree of angst in the banking world. As they talked about possibilities, the official mentioned out of the blue that a number of auto dealerships had gotten in money-laundering trouble due to bad guys buying cars with dubiously procured cash. Carr worked the phones and it turned out that this was news to a lot of executives in Detroit. The official wound up creating a niche advising carmakers on how to not inadvertently violate money laundering laws.

Cabinet members may bank on their name recognition securing them a coveted board slot or CEO offer. But this represents a kind of fantasy for the bureaucratic everyman or everywoman — the realization that your narrow expertise can be a productive business.

“It's like being a doctor at a cocktail party, right?” says Carr. “A lot of people want to talk to you. It’s, ‘What should I do when I grow up?’ ‘What could I do that would make me more fulfilled?’”

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Memphis police disband unit that beat Tyre Nichols

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis police chief on Saturday disbanded the city's so-called Scorpion unit after some of its officers beat to death Tyre Nichols, reversing an earlier statement that she would keep the unit intact.

Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she listened to Nichols' relatives, community leaders and uninvolved officers in making the decision.

Referring to “the heinous actions of a few" that cast “a cloud of dishonor” on the unit, Davis said it was imperative that the department "take proactive steps in the healing process.”

“It is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit,” she said in a statement. She said the officers currently assigned to the unit agreed "unreservedly" with the step.

The unit is composed of three teams of about 30 officers who target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime. It had been inactive since Nichols' Jan. 7 arrest.

Scorpion stands for Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods.

Protestors marching though downtown Memphis cheered when they heard the unit had been dissolved. One protestor said over a bullhorn “the unit that killed Tyre has been permanently disbanded.”

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Davis said she would not shut down a unit if a few officers commit “some egregious act” and because she needs that unit to continue to work.

“The whole idea that the Scorpion unit is a bad unit, I just have a problem with that,” Davis said.

The disbanding was announced as the nation and the city struggled to come to grips with video showing police pummeling the Black motorist.

The footage released Friday left many unanswered questions about the traffic stop involving Nichols and about other law enforcement officers who stood by as he lay motionless on the pavement. It video also renewed doubts about why fatal encounters with law enforcement continue to happen after repeated calls for change.

The five disgraced former Memphis Police Department officers, who are also Black, have been fired and charged with murder and other crimes in Nichols’ death three days after the arrest.

The recording shows police savagely beating Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, for three minutes while screaming profanities at him in an assault that the Nichols family legal team has likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Nichols calls out for his mother before his limp body is propped against a squad car and the officers exchange fist-bumps.

The five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

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At the Pentagon, push to send F-16s to Ukraine picks up steam

A contingent of military officials is quietly pushing the Pentagon to approve sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to help the country defend itself from Russian missile and drone attacks, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.

Ukraine has kept American-made F-16s on its weapons wish list since the Russian invasion last year. But Washington and Kyiv have viewed artillery, armor and ground-based air defense systems as more urgent needs as Ukraine seeks to protect civilian infrastructure and claw back ground occupied by Russian forces.

As Ukraine prepares to launch a new offensive to retake territory in the spring, the campaign inside the Defense Department for fighter jets is gaining momentum, according to a DoD official and two other people involved in the discussions. Those people, along with others interviewed for this story, asked not to be named in order to discuss internal matters.

Spurred in part by the rapid approval of tanks and Patriot air defense systems — which not long ago were off-limits for export to Ukraine — there is renewed optimism in Kyiv that U.S. jets could be next up.

“I don’t think we are opposed,” said a senior DoD official about the F-16s, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive debate. The person stressed that there has been no final decision.

However, Ukraine has yet to declare that fighter jets are its top priority, the official stressed, noting that the Pentagon is focused on sending Kyiv the capabilities it needs for the immediate fight.

But fighter jets may be moving to the top spot soon. Kyiv has renewed its request for modern fighters in recent days, with a top adviser to the country’s defense minister telling media outlets that officials will push for jets from the U.S. and European countries.

A top Ukrainian official said Saturday that Ukraine and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on possibly sending both long-range missiles and military aircraft.

One adviser to the Ukrainian government said the subject has been raised with Washington, but there has been “nothing too serious” on the table yet. Another person familiar with the conversations between Washington and Kyiv said it could take “weeks” for the U.S. to make a decision on shipments of its own jets and approve the re-export of the F-16s from other countries.

"If we get them, the advantages on the battlefield will be just immense. ... It's not just F-16s: fourth generation aircraft, this is what we want,” Yuriy Sak, who advises Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, told Reuters.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment for this story, but pointed to remarks by deputy national security adviser Jon Finer. He said the U.S. would be discussing fighter jets “very carefully” with Kyiv and its allies.

“We have not ruled in or out any specific systems,” Finer said on MSNBC Thursday.

“We have nothing to announce regarding F-16s," said a DOD spokesperson. "As always, we’ll continue to consult closely with the Ukrainians and our international Allies and partners on Ukraine’s security assistance needs to enable them to defend their country.”

Ukraine wants modern fighters — U.S. Air Force F-16s or F-15s, or their European equivalents the German Tornado or Swedish Gripen — to replace its fleet of Soviet-era jets. Dozens of the more modern planes will become available over the next year as countries such as Finland, Germany and the Netherlands upgrade to U.S. F-35 fighters.

Despite the age of Ukraine’s jets, Kyiv’s integrated air defenses have kept Russia from dominating its skies since the Feb. 24 invasion.

But now, officials are concerned that Ukraine is running out of missiles to protect its skies. Once its arsenal is depleted, Russia’s advanced fighter jets will be able to move in and Kyiv “will not be able to compete,” said the DoD official involved in the discussions.

Modern fighter jets could be one solution to this problem, argues a group of military officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere. F-16s carry air-to-air missiles that can shoot down incoming missiles and drones. And unlike the Patriots and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems the West is currently sending, fighter jets can move around an area quickly to protect different targets.

“If they get [F-16] Vipers and they have an active air-to-air missile with the radar the F-16 currently has with some electronic protection, now it’s an even game,” the DoD official said.

Even if the U.S. decided not to send the Air Force’s F-16s, other Western nations have American-made fighters they could supply. For example, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra told the Dutch parliament last week that his Cabinet would look at supplying F-16s, if Kyiv requests them. But the U.S. must approve the transfer.

Senior Pentagon officials acknowledge that Ukraine needs new aircraft for the long term. But for now, some argue that Ukraine has a greater need for more traditional air defenses, such as the Patriots and NASAMs that the U.S. and other countries are supplying, because jets may take months to arrive.

Sending Ukraine F-16s “does not solve the cruise missile or drone problem right now,” the senior DoD official said.

Big push for training

Others say the need for fighter jets is more urgent. Ukraine has identified a list of up to 50 pilots who are ready now to start training on the F-16, according to a DoD official and a Ukrainian official, as well as three other people familiar with the discussions. These seasoned pilots speak English and have thousands of combat missions under their belts, and could be trained in as little as three months, the people said.

Many of them have already trained with the U.S. military in major exercises before the invasion. In 2011 and 2018, Americans and Ukrainians participated in military drills in the skies over Ukraine. In 2011, the Americans brought over their F-16s and taught the Ukrainian pilots, in their MiG-29s and Su-27s, how to protect a stadium in preparation for the 2012 Euro Cup.

After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, the U.S. and Ukraine held a second joint 2018 exercise aimed at teaching Ukrainian pilots homeland defense tactics and controlling the skies. The American pilots used their F-15s to replicate Russian fighter tactics.

Ukraine is pushing the U.S. to start training its fighter pilots on the F-16s now, before President Joe Biden approves supplying the jets, according to the Ukrainian official and one of the people familiar. But there is no appetite in the Pentagon for this proposal, U.S. officials said. One alternative under discussion at lower levels is to start training Ukrainian pilots on introductory fighter tactics in trainer jets.

Ukraine has also considered contracting with private companies in the U.S. to begin training pilots, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

It’s likely U.S. military training would not start without a presidential decision to supply American fighters. One concern for the Biden administration all along is that sending advanced weapons could be seen by Russia as an escalation, prompting Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons.

But officials point out that the F-16 was first built in the 1980s, and the Air Force is already retiring parts of the fleet. While sending Ukraine the stealthy American F-22s or F-35s would be considered escalatory, sending F-16s would not, they said.

“Let’s face it, a nuclear war isn’t going to happen over F-16s,” the DoD official said.

One European official agreed, saying F-16s “cannot be considered escalatory.”

“It’s simply part of the toolkit of having conventional weapons,” the person said.

Yet F-16s are complex systems that also require massive infrastructure and highly skilled technicians to operate and maintain. Training Ukrainian maintainers would likely take longer than training the pilots, and the U.S. may need to bring in contractors to do some of that instruction.

Lawmaker support

Providing F-16s is likely to win some support on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and Republicans alike have chided the administration for not moving quickly enough or for withholding certain capabilities, such as longer-range artillery. Sending Russian-made MiG fighters to Ukraine, via Eastern European countries that still fly them, won bipartisan support, though a weapons swap ultimately never came to fruition.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, said he's "not against" providing F-16s to Kyiv, but broadly favors providing Ukraine with "whatever works."

"You can't half-ass a war. Putin's not. You've got to meet Putin armor for armor, weapon for weapon, because there's already an extraordinary disadvantage in number of troops," Quigley said. "Whatever works, whatever they need, send to them.

"My message when I first started talking about this is what were once vices are now habits," he said. “Everything we ever proposed was seen as escalatory."

But the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), cast doubt on the need to send F-16s into the conflict, where fighters haven't proved pivotal.

"I'm not opposed to it," Smith said. "It's just not at the top of the list of anybody's priorities who's focused on what [weapons] the fight really needs right now."

He noted that F-16s, much like older MiG jets debated last year, would be vulnerable to Russian air defenses and fifth-generation fighters. Instead, Smith underscored the need to supply ammunition for air defense batteries, longer-range missiles, tanks and armored vehicles.

"What we really need to be focused on is air defense, number one," he said. "And number two, artillery."

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At the Pentagon, push to send F-16s to Ukraine picks up steam

A contingent of military officials is quietly pushing the Pentagon to approve sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to help the country defend itself from Russian missile and drone attacks, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.

Ukraine has kept American-made F-16s on its weapons wish list since the Russian invasion last year. But Washington and Kyiv have viewed artillery, armor and ground-based air defense systems as more urgent needs as Ukraine seeks to protect civilian infrastructure and claw back ground occupied by Russian forces.

As Ukraine prepares to launch a new offensive to retake territory in the spring, the campaign inside the Defense Department for fighter jets is gaining momentum, according to a DoD official and two other people involved in the discussions. Those people, along with others interviewed for this story, asked not to be named in order to discuss internal matters.

Spurred in part by the rapid approval of tanks and Patriot air defense systems — which not long ago were off-limits for export to Ukraine — there is renewed optimism in Kyiv that U.S. jets could be next up.

“I don’t think we are opposed,” said a senior DoD official about the F-16s, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive debate. The person stressed that there has been no final decision.

However, Ukraine has yet to declare that fighter jets are its top priority, the official stressed, noting that the Pentagon is focused on sending Kyiv the capabilities it needs for the immediate fight.

But fighter jets may be moving to the top spot soon. Kyiv has renewed its request for modern fighters in recent days, with a top adviser to the country’s defense minister telling media outlets that officials will push for jets from the U.S. and European countries.

A top Ukrainian official said Saturday that Ukraine and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on possibly sending both long-range missiles and military aircraft.

One adviser to the Ukrainian government said the subject has been raised with Washington, but there has been “nothing too serious” on the table yet. Another person familiar with the conversations between Washington and Kyiv said it could take “weeks” for the U.S. to make a decision on shipments of its own jets and approve the re-export of the F-16s from other countries.

"If we get them, the advantages on the battlefield will be just immense. ... It's not just F-16s: fourth generation aircraft, this is what we want,” Yuriy Sak, who advises Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, told Reuters.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment for this story, but pointed to remarks by deputy national security adviser Jon Finer. He said the U.S. would be discussing fighter jets “very carefully” with Kyiv and its allies.

“We have not ruled in or out any specific systems,” Finer said on MSNBC Thursday.

Ukraine wants modern fighters — U.S. Air Force F-16s or F-15s, or their European equivalents the German Tornado or Swedish Gripen — to replace its fleet of Soviet-era jets. Dozens of the more modern planes will become available over the next year as countries such as Finland, Germany and the Netherlands upgrade to U.S. F-35 fighters.

Despite the age of Ukraine’s jets, Kyiv’s integrated air defenses have kept Russia from dominating its skies since the Feb. 24 invasion.

But now, officials are concerned that Ukraine is running out of missiles to protect its skies. Once its arsenal is depleted, Russia’s advanced fighter jets will be able to move in and Kyiv “will not be able to compete,” said the DoD official involved in the discussions.

Modern fighter jets could be one solution to this problem, argues a group of military officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere. F-16s carry air-to-air missiles that can shoot down incoming missiles and drones. And unlike the Patriots and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems the West is currently sending, fighter jets can move around an area quickly to protect different targets.

“If they get [F-16] Vipers and they have an active air-to-air missile with the radar the F-16 currently has with some electronic protection, now it’s an even game,” the DoD official said.

Even if the U.S. decided not to send the Air Force’s F-16s, other Western nations have American-made fighters they could supply. For example, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra told the Dutch parliament last week that his Cabinet would look at supplying F-16s, if Kyiv requests them. But the U.S. must approve the transfer.

Senior Pentagon officials acknowledge that Ukraine needs new aircraft for the long term. But for now, some argue that Ukraine has a greater need for more traditional air defenses, such as the Patriots and NASAMs that the U.S. and other countries are supplying, because jets may take months to arrive.

Sending Ukraine F-16s “does not solve the cruise missile or drone problem right now,” the senior DoD official said.

Big push for training

Others say the need for fighter jets is more urgent. Ukraine has identified a list of up to 50 pilots who are ready now to start training on the F-16, according to a DoD official and a Ukrainian official, as well as three other people familiar with the discussions. These seasoned pilots speak English and have thousands of combat missions under their belts, and could be trained in as little as three months, the people said.

Many of them have already trained with the U.S. military in major exercises before the invasion. In 2011 and 2018, Americans and Ukrainians participated in military drills in the skies over Ukraine. In 2011, the Americans brought over their F-16s and taught the Ukrainian pilots, in their MiG-29s and Su-27s, how to protect a stadium in preparation for the 2012 Euro Cup.

After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, the U.S. and Ukraine held a second joint 2018 exercise aimed at teaching Ukrainian pilots homeland defense tactics and controlling the skies. The American pilots used their F-15s to replicate Russian fighter tactics.

Ukraine is pushing the U.S. to start training its fighter pilots on the F-16s now, before President Joe Biden approves supplying the jets, according to the Ukrainian official and one of the people familiar. But there is no appetite in the Pentagon for this proposal, U.S. officials said. One alternative under discussion at lower levels is to start training Ukrainian pilots on introductory fighter tactics in trainer jets.

Ukraine has also considered contracting with private companies in the U.S. to begin training pilots, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

It’s likely U.S. military training would not start without a presidential decision to supply American fighters. One concern for the Biden administration all along is that sending advanced weapons could be seen by Russia as an escalation, prompting Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons.

But officials point out that the F-16 was first built in the 1980s, and the Air Force is already retiring parts of the fleet. While sending Ukraine the stealthy American F-22s or F-35s would be considered escalatory, sending F-16s would not, they said.

“Let’s face it, a nuclear war isn’t going to happen over F-16s,” the DoD official said.

One European official agreed, saying F-16s “cannot be considered escalatory.”

“It’s simply part of the toolkit of having conventional weapons,” the person said.

Yet F-16s are complex systems that also require massive infrastructure and highly skilled technicians to operate and maintain. Training Ukrainian maintainers would likely take longer than training the pilots, and the U.S. may need to bring in contractors to do some of that instruction.

Lawmaker support

Providing F-16s is likely to win some support on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and Republicans alike have chided the administration for not moving quickly enough or for withholding certain capabilities, such as longer-range artillery. Sending Russian-made MiG fighters to Ukraine, via Eastern European countries that still fly them, won bipartisan support, though a weapons swap ultimately never came to fruition.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, said he's "not against" providing F-16s to Kyiv, but broadly favors providing Ukraine with "whatever works."

"You can't half-ass a war. Putin's not. You've got to meet Putin armor for armor, weapon for weapon, because there's already an extraordinary disadvantage in number of troops," Quigley said. "Whatever works, whatever they need, send to them.

"My message when I first started talking about this is what were once vices are now habits," he said. “Everything we ever proposed was seen as escalatory."

But the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), cast doubt on the need to send F-16s into the conflict, where fighters haven't proved pivotal.

"I'm not opposed to it," Smith said. "It's just not at the top of the list of anybody's priorities who's focused on what [weapons] the fight really needs right now."

He noted that F-16s, much like older MiG jets debated last year, would be vulnerable to Russian air defenses and fifth-generation fighters. Instead, Smith underscored the need to supply ammunition for air defense batteries, longer-range missiles, tanks and armored vehicles.

"What we really need to be focused on is air defense, number one," he said. "And number two, artillery."

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New York mayor confers with White House ahead of expected Tyre Nichols protests

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams said Friday he has been in contact with the White House and mayors across the country as the nation prepares for Tennessee officials to release video footage showing the traffic stop that turned deadly for Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was beaten by Memphis police.

“As a human being, I am devastated. As a mayor, I am outraged. And as someone who spent decades fighting for police diversity and against police abuse, I feel betrayed by these officers,” Adams said Friday night in a live address from City Hall.

On Thursday, five Memphis police officers were charged with murder after pulling over Nichols on Jan. 7 and — according to officials who have seen the footage — beating him so savagely he died in a hospital three days later.

With several demonstrations already in the works, Adams urged New Yorkers to express themselves peacefully.

“My message to New York is to respect the wishes of Mr. Nichols’ mother. If you need to express your anger and outrage, do so peacefully,” he said. “My message to the NYPD has been and will continue to be to exercise restraint.”

Adams said prior to his discussion with the White House, he convened a call with elected officials from across government to discuss the release of the footage.

One person familiar with the call said Police Chief Keechant Sewell urged restraint, with the aim of avoiding a repeat of the NYPD’s sometimes violent crackdown on the social justice protests of 2020. Several officials voiced support for reforms to the NYPD on the call, while Adams himself mentioned the potential for bad actors to exploit mass gatherings.

Adams came into office promising a balance between support for law enforcement and preventing overly aggressive policing that has historically afflicted communities of color. The protests planned for Friday evening could prove a major test of that balancing act.

“I have stated over and over again that we have a sacred covenant. Our officers must follow the law and be held accountable for their actions,” he said. “Otherwise there is no law.”

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