Mr. President,

First and foremost, we would like to thank you, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and the broad bipartisan coalition in Congress for your unwavering support for Ukraine and for the leadership that the United States has once again taken in defense of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter. Like you, we believe that, as General Christopher Cavoli put it so well, “Russia cannot come out of this war with victory, our future simply cannot stand it.”

We have often wished that the assistance provided to Ukraine had been faster and more extensive. However, we are well aware that you are in possession of information that we do not have, and that you have had to work hard to build the Ramstein coalition and to make it more cohesive.

We are writing to you today because we are concerned. The task that awaits the Ukrainian armed forces in the coming months is enormous. There is a risk of setbacks and partial successes. And, as General Mark Milley has repeatedly reminded us, it is always a bad idea to underestimate the military capabilities of the Russian Federation. In other words, there is no guarantee that the war will not continue beyond 2023.

As you know, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and many Ukrainian military and political leaders believe that the supply of Western aircraft is crucial for a quick end to the war. Moreover, as Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, and James Cleverley, the British Foreign Secretary, have stated, the only real guarantee of Ukraine’s security in the medium and long term is its membership of the Atlantic Organization, even if this is only possible at the end of the war. We have no doubt that a broad consensus is forming on this point. We believe that the states that blocked this process in 2008 at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, and thus bear a grave responsibility for the war in progress, will be careful not to hinder it again.

We are aware that mastering the use of modern Western aircraft requires extensive pilot training and complex logistics. But we also know that the Ukrainian soldiers, who are highly motivated, have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to learn.

As leader of the Ramstein coalition, and as president of the country that produces the aircraft that the Ukrainian military authorities want most – the F-16 – your approval is essential.

In six months’ time the Ramstein coalition must be in a position to adjudicate – in the light of the prevailing military and political situation – on the supply of these F-16s by your country and by those European countries that have them. It therefore seems essential to us that a decision be taken without delay to train around one hundred

Ukrainian pilots; to assemble the logistical chain involved in the supply of a hundred or so aircraft; to establish the number of aircraft that each NATO member country could effectively supply in the fall of 2023; and to prepare those aircraft.

We thank you for doing everything in your power to achieve these objectives in the near future and assure you, Mr. President, of our highest consideration,

First signatories:

Cengiz Aktar, Professor of Political Science at the University of Athens

Olga Artyushkina, Senior Lecturer HDR in Russian Grammar and Linguistics, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University

Gérard Bensussan, philosopher, Professor Emeritus at the University of Strasbourg, France

Florian Bieber, Professor of Southeast European History and Politics, Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, Austria

Paulo Casaca, former Member of the Portuguese Parliament, former member of the European Parliament

Massimiliano Di Pasquale, Associate researcher at the Gino Germani Foundation, Italy

Olivier Dupuis, former Member of the European Parliament, Belgium

Emmanuel Dupuy, President of the Institute for Prospective and Security in Europe (IPSE), France

Penelope Faulkner, Vice-President of Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam, France

Andrej Findor, Associate Professor at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

Natalia Gamalova, Professor of Russian Language and Literature, Department of Slavic Studies, University of Lyon 3, France

Nicolas Gosset, defence analyst, research fellow Russia/Eurasia at the Royal Higher Institute for Defence, Brussels, Belgium

Iegor Gran, writer, France

Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse, Professor, University of Warsaw, Head of Department of European Union Policies at the Institute of European Studies, Editor-in-Chief of the International Analyzes quarterly, Poland

Jarosław Gryz, Professor at War Studies University, Poland

Patrick Hassenteufel, Professor of Political Science, Université Paris-Saclay (UVSQ), Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France

Marie Holzman, Sinologist, President of Solidarité Chine

Christian Kaunert, Professor of International Security Policy, Dublin City University and University of South Wales

Jonathan Littell, writer, Goncourt Prize, France

Mihhail Lotman, former MP, Professor emeritus at the Tallinn University, Professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia

Alain Maskens, Physician, oncologist, founder and former medical coordinator of the European Organization for Cooperation in Cancer Prevention Studies (ECP), Belgium

Alexander Motyl, Professor of political science, Rutgers University-Newark, United States

Boris Najman, Associate Professor and Researcher in Economics at University Paris East Créteil

Andrzej Podraza, Professor, Head of the Chair of International Relations and Security, Catholic University of Lublin, Poland; Visiting Fellow, University of Notre Dame, USA

Jean-Paul Pylypczuk, Director of the publication “La parole ukrainienne”, France

Vasile Simileanu, geopolitics PhD, Director GeoPolitica Magazine, Romania

Wally Struys, Professor Emeritus, Defence Economist Royal Military Academy, Belgium

Patrizia Tosini, Associate Professor of History of Modern Art, Roma Tre University, Italy

Maïrbek Vatchagaev, Chechen historian and political analyst of the North Caucasus at the Jamestown Foundation, co-editor of the journal “Caucasus Survey”