{"id":264862,"date":"2023-02-09T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T06:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264862"},"modified":"2023-02-10T08:33:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T08:33:31","slug":"britain-pledges-to-train-ukraines-pilots-signaling-that-warplanes-could-come-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264862","title":{"rendered":"Britain Pledges to Train Ukraine\u2019s Pilots, Signaling That Warplanes Could Come Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Times \u2013 Feb 8, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Britain\u2019s new promise to train Ukrainian pilots on NATO-standard jets is just a \u201cfirst step,\u201d the country\u2019s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said on Wednesday, strongly suggesting the training pledge was a prelude to providing Ukraine with advanced British fighter planes to help battle invading Russian forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith regard to aircraft, we have already said nothing is off the table, and the first step on that has to be to have people who can fly what are very sophisticated pieces of kit,\u201d Mr. Sunak said at a joint media conference with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, at a British military base in southern England. \u201cWhen it comes to fighter combat aircraft, of course, they are part of the conversation,\u201d Mr. Sunak said, adding, \u201cwe do need to make sure that they can operate the aircraft that they potentially could be using.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the news conference, the two leaders spoke from lecterns in front of a Challenger 2 tank at a military base in Dorset, in the south of England, where members of the Ukrainian armed forces have been trained. Britain, which was in the vanguard in offering tanks to Ukraine, has promised to send 14 of its Challenger 2 vehicles, and Mr. Sunak said they would arrive within \u201cweeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wearing his familiar military-style clothing<\/a>, Mr. Zelensky thanked Britain for its support in the conflict with Russia and said he had heard from Mr. Sunak of his \u201cdesire to provide fighter jets.\u201d And he warned that without additional advanced weaponry from the West, the war in Ukraine could descend into a stalemate with Russia.<\/p>\n

Without new weapons, Mr. Zelensky said, \u201cThere will be stagnation, which will not lead to anything good.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Washington, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken underscored the urgency of bolstering Ukraine\u2019s military capabilities. At a joint news conference with Jens Stoltenberg, NATO\u2019s secretary general, Mr. Blinken said that recent statements by President Vladimir V. Putin showed that the Russian leader was not amenable to diplomacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly President Putin has no genuine interest in diplomacy right now,\u201d Mr. Blinken said, adding that U.S. officials believe \u201cthe best way to hasten prospects for diplomacy is to keep tilting the battlefield in Ukraine\u2019s favor. This will ensure that Ukraine has the strongest possible hand to play at a negotiating table when one emerges.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Mr. Sunak has made it clear that Britain has shifted from its initial reluctance to provide Ukraine with fighter jets, though he has made no formal pledge to send them.<\/p>\n

At the news conference with Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Sunak said, \u201cThere are other allies involved\u201d in the question of sending jets. Doing so would require the approval of other Western nations, which he said Britain was talking to.<\/p>\n

Mr. Zelensky subtly kept up the pressure on Mr. Sunak, who said that it would take inexperienced pilots three years to learn to fly sophisticated British jets like the Typhoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to Typhoon,\u201d Mr. Zelensky said, \u201cI didn\u2019t know it takes three years to train a pilot like that. Come on, we will be sending you pilots who have already trained for two and a half years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

France’s President Emmanuel Macron (L) welcomes Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) upon his arrival at the Elysee presidential palace. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The news conference followed Mr. Zelensky\u2019s address to the British Parliament and his meeting with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, and he went to Paris Wednesday evening for another stop on the brief tour of Europe. There he met with President Emmanuel Macron of France and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia cannot and must not win,\u201d Mr. Macron said at a joint news conference with the two other leaders. \u201cAs long as it attacks, it will be necessary for us to pursue, to adapt and to modulate the military support that is necessary to preserve Ukraine and its future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Scholz said that Ukraine\u2019s allies would provide financial, humanitarian and military support for \u201cas long as necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephen Castle<\/a>,\u00a0Edward Wong<\/a> and Aurelien Breeden<\/a><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All the signs suggest we could soon see a dramatic escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. With pledges of more advanced weapons from the West, including possible British fighter planes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":264865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264864,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264862\/revisions\/264864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}