{"id":289233,"date":"2024-06-11T05:55:54","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T05:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=289233"},"modified":"2024-06-12T07:59:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T07:59:21","slug":"ukraines-air-force-may-keep-some-f-16-warplanes-abroad-to-protect-them-from-russian-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=289233","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s air force may keep some F-16 warplanes abroad to protect them from Russian strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 June 11, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

NATO’s supply to Ukraine of a total of 60 nuclear capable F-16s could easily lead to a widening of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Both President Putin<\/a> and the head of the Duma Defense Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, have warned that air bases hosting Ukraine\u2019s F-16s will be considered \u2018legitimate targets\u2019.<\/p>\n

Are NATO nations supplying the planes because they believe it will force Ukraine to keep at least some aircraft in airbases outside the country? Although ostensibly to protect them from Russian strikes, the placing of such high value targets within range of Russian strikes might prove too tempting for Putin.<\/p>\n

Is that the reasoning behind the rush to supply F-16s to Ukraine? Are they actively trying to lure Russian strikes against NATO members that might host Ukrainian F-16s?<\/p>\n

Wherever they are kept the F-16s will be prime targets for Russian strikes, and that includes NATO states. Ed.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s air force may keep some F-16 warplanes abroad to protect them from Russian strikes<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Hanna Arhirova \u2013 Associated Press June 10, 2024<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ukraine may keep some of the F-16 fighter jets it’s set to receive from its Western allies at foreign bases to protect them from Russian strikes, a senior Ukrainian military officer said Monday.<\/p>\n

Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands<\/a> and Norway have committed to providing Ukraine with over 60 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets<\/a> to help it fend off Russian attacks. Ukrainian pilots are currently undergoing training to fly the warplanes ahead of the deliveries expected to start later this year.<\/p>\n

Serhii Holubtsov, head of aviation within Ukraine\u2019s air force, said that “a certain number of aircraft will be stored at secure air bases outside of Ukraine so that they are not targeted here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holubtsov told the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty that those F-16s could be used to replace damaged aircraft as they undergo repairs as well as for training Ukrainian pilots abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis way, we can always have a certain number of aircraft in the operational fleet that corresponds to the number of pilots we have,” he said. “If there are more pilots, there will be more aircraft in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow could consider launching strikes at facilities in NATO countries if they host the warplanes used in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they are stationed at air bases outside the Ukrainian borders and used in combat, we will have to see how and where to strike the assets used in combat against us,\u201d Putin said last year. \u201cIt poses a serious danger of NATO being further drawn into the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, the Russian leader again warned Ukraine\u2019s Western allies against providing air bases from where the F-16s could launch sorties against the Kremlin\u2019s forces. Those bases would become a \u201clegitimate target,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cF-16s are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and we will also need to take that into account while organizing our combat operations,\u201d Putin stated.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the defense committee in the Russian Parliament’s lower house told the state RIA Novosti news agency that NATO bases hosting Ukrainian F-16s would be \u201clegitimate targets\u201d for Moscow if the warplanes use them to launch attacks on Russia.<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukraine may keep some of the 60 F-16s it is due to receive from the West in foreign air bases so as to keep them beyond the reach of Russian strikes. However, this may only cause the war to spread. Is that the plan? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":247143,"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-289233","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\/289233","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=289233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289256,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289233\/revisions\/289256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/247143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}