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Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target the third country hosting Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets. Photo/REUTERS
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that his troops would destroy F-16 fighter jets made in the United States (US) if they reached Ukraine.
Not only that, the Kremlin leader also threatened the third country hosting Ukrainian F-16s as a legitimate target for Moscow's combat flights.
Several NATO members have pledged to donate their American-made fighter jets to Kyiv and have trained Ukrainian pilots to fly them, but no deliveries have been made so far.
Moscow has repeatedly warned Western countries that deploying nuclear-capable jets would be an unacceptable escalation of the Ukraine conflict.
“If they send F-16s, I think you know better than anyone else that this will not change the situation on the battlefield,” Putin said on Thursday (28/3/2024).
“And we will destroy these planes just as we destroy tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, including some rocket launch systems,” he continued, as reported by Russia Today.
Putin's threat came during his visit to Torzhok Air Base in the Tver Region, home to the 344th Training Center for Russian fighter pilots, including personnel trained to take part in the war in Ukraine.
Putin said that if the F-16s flown by Ukrainian pilots were eventually stationed in third countries, those third countries would become legitimate targets for Russian combat aviation.
Russia, he added, was well aware that fighter jets from the 1970s had the potential to carry nuclear weapons, and this would be taken into account in combat operations.
Kyiv has lost most of its Air Force assets over the past two years, including Soviet-era jets donated by several NATO members. The Ukrainian government finally asked the United States-led military bloc for F-16s.
This single-engine fighter is a late 1970s design, originally produced by General Dynamics before being acquired by Lockheed Martin.
Operations require pristine runways, which are in short supply in Ukraine, fueling speculation that Ukrainian-operated fighter jets may be deployed to neighboring NATO countries.
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