Erik Prince, the founder of private military contractor Blackwater, told Newsmax on Thursday that he anonymously gave the Biden administration an option in December to offer a lend-lease to Ukraine of up to 200 combat aircraft that the Air Force planned to retire.
"Of those, almost 150 of them [fighter jets] are F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s," Prince said during his appearance on "Stinchfield." "If they flew any package of those aircraft to Ukraine and badge them as Ukrainian aircraft, flown by Ukrainians, flown by American contractors, or flown by Europeans, it would have absolutely provided the deterrence, so that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin never ever stepped foot in the country.
"It's the failure of imagination by the same so-called smart people that gave us the debacle in Afghanistan that has now given us this, what's going to be, a major loss of life unnecessarily so in Ukraine," he added.
Prince said he did not know why the administration refused his plan but attributed it to an unwillingness to address foreign policy questions directly.
"It certainly is distracting, but it is a terrible look for Western civilization to let this happen. I'm happy to see the Europeans step up," Prince said.
"I'm even shocked that the Swiss have come off the sidelines after 500 years and are sanctioning Russians. They didn't even sanction Hitler and his Nazi gang, so maybe it will cause a reawakening in western Europe to defend themselves. It's a good thing."
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