MOSCOW: The transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will raise the question about NATO’s involvement in the conflict, said Russia’s Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov. According to AL Jazeera, “There is no infrastructure for the operation of the F-16 fighter in Ukraine, and the needed number of jets pilots and maintenance personnel isn’t there either,” Antonov said in a Telegram messaging channel on Monday.
“What will happen if the US fighters take off from NATO airfields, controlled by foreign ‘volunteers’?” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has for months been calling on the country’s Western partners to supply advanced jets amid concerns that the move would be met with an escalation by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But amid a flurry of diplomacy by President Zelenskyy ahead of the just-concluded G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Dutch PM Mark Rutte announced last week that they had agreed to build a “world coalition” to provide jet support to Ukraine.
Then on Friday, United States President Joe Biden endorsed training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 jets, with President Zelenskyy assuring Biden that the aircraft wouldn’t be used to go into Russian territory.
Over the weekend, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said. Western nations would be running “massive risks” if they went ahead with the supply of the F-16 jets.
Antonov said any Ukrainian attack on Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, would be taken as an attack on Moscow. He said, “It is significant that the US be fully aware of the Russian response.” The world community does not recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
Air defence experts have said the US-built F-16 jets would offer Ukraine an edge over the Russian air force, but if combined with powerful missiles and hitting information, which the West would have to provide and which would risk drawing Ukraine’s Western allies more actively into the war.
