Russia says F-16s to Ukraine would raise question of NATO involvement

Reuters:

May 22 – The transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine would raise the question of NATO’s role in the conflict and would not undermine Russia’s military goals, senior Russian diplomats said on Monday.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday endorsed training programs for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy assured Biden that the aircraft would not be used to go into Russian territory.

“There is no infrastructure for the operation of the F-16 in Ukraine and the needed number of pilots and maintenance personnel is not there either,” Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said in remarks published on the embassy’s Telegram messaging channel.

“What will happen if the American fighters take off from NATO airfields, controlled by foreign ‘volunteers’?”

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said any transfer of the U.S. jets to Ukraine would be “absolutely pointless and stupid”, state-owned news agency RIA reported.

“These efforts are completely useless and meaningless: our capabilities are such that all the goals of the special military operation will certainly be achieved”, Ryabkov was cited by RIA as saying, using Moscow’s preferred term for the conflict.