The choice by Germany, the US, and others to ship primary battle tanks to Ukraine has gone additional than many thought reasonable simply months in the past.
Western nations, showcasing unity and wanting to go off a renewed Russian offensive, have solid apart fears that extra superior weaponry risked frightening Russian President Vladimir Putin.
With tanks checked off the record, Ukrainian leaders have renewed their public appeals for Western fighter jets.
“I despatched a want record card to Santa Claus final yr, and fighter jets additionally [were] together with on this want record,” Protection Minister Oleksii Reznikov instructed CNN this week.
Publicly, Western leaders eschew dialogue of fighter jets going to Ukraine, they usually weren’t formally on the agenda of a gathering between Ukraine and its allies in Ramstein, Germany, final week.
However whereas final yr the supply of fighter jets was declared by the Pentagon press secretary to deliver “little elevated capabilities, at excessive danger,” now Jon Finer, the US Deputy Nationwide Safety Adviser, says that they’ve “not dominated in or out any particular techniques,” together with the F-16.
The Netherlands, too, elicited some raised eyebrows final week, when its international minister instructed a parliamentarian asking about F-16s that “on the subject of issues that the Netherlands can provide, there are not any taboos.”
The F-16, first developed within the Nineteen Seventies, is a extremely maneuverable fighter jet, able to carrying six air-to-air or air-to-surface missiles below its wings. It’s not bought by the US, however new iterations are nonetheless being bought by international locations like Bahrain and Jordan.
The fighter jet’s present producer, Lockheed Martin, has taken word. Its chief working officer, Frank St. John, acknowledged to the Monetary Instances this week that there was “numerous dialog about third social gathering switch of F-16s,” and {that a} new iteration of the F-16 simply coming into manufacturing may assist satiate potential demand.
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