WASHINGTON, August 29. /TASS/. Washington has not received any requests for assistance from Ukraine following its loss of the first donated F-16 fighter jet, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters at a briefing.
"I'm not aware of any assistance or request for assistance from the Ukrainian side to us about this particular incident," she said, redirecting the question about the cause behind the loss of the plane to the Ukrainian authorities.
Singh also declined to say how many F-16 jets were currently deployed to Ukraine.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Air Forces confirmed the death of a Ukrainian F-16 pilot. Prior to that, a US official confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine had lost the first of the F-16 planes donated by the West. The official said that the plane crashed due to a pilot error.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on August 7 that F-16 fighters would not become the miracle cure to change the course of military operations and "will be consistently destroyed by the Russian Armed Forces.".