Eleven NATO members agreed on Tuesday to start training Ukrainian pilots on US-made F-16s in Europe this August, the first step toward getting the American-made fighter jets to the war zone in Ukraine.
According to POLITICO, the training will begin in Denmark and will also be held in Romania once a support station is established in the country. The first Ukrainian pilots are expected to complete their training by early next year.
Denmark and the Netherlands are leading the program, and the other countries involved include Britain, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Sweden.
The Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium are all expected to supply Ukraine with F-16s, but they have yet to make a final commitment. President Biden has given the green light for European nations to deliver F-16s, and the US has not ruled out the idea of sending their own to Ukraine.
The training plan was agreed to at the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius that started Tuesday. The provision of Western-made fighter jets to Ukraine marks a significant escalation of NATO involvement in the war and demonstrates how the alliance has been less and less worried about provoking retaliation from Moscow.
In March 2022, NATO officials ruled out the idea of sending Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets because they feared Russia would perceive the move as the alliance directly entering the war. But now, Poland and Slovakia have sent MiGs to Ukraine, and F-16s will eventually be on the way.
NATO has done everything but directly declare war on Russia. What has Russia done to any NATO country but economic trade? NATO is hiding behind a tissue (the Ukraine and its “democracy”) to wage war on Russia in everything but name. This is a dangerous ‘game’ they’re playing. I wouldn’t mind so much except a WW3 is liable to affect me negatively; maybe some you, also.
Besides making threats, nothing else because it’s NATO but rest assure that if there was no NATO, Russia would’ve invaded and annexed the Baltics and parts of other European countries as well as parts of some former Soviet Union States by now just like they have done to Chechnya, Georgia, and now Ukraine.
Russia doesn’t like NATO because it is encroaching them, they don’t like NATO because NATO keeps them from fulfilling their expansionism ambitions.
Chechnya and Georgia were before 2014. You were still a Putin fanboy back then.
I doubt Russia wants to invade Europe. All evidence pointed to economic cooperation which ticked off the US.
Economic cooperation ticked off the USA? Russia was a part of the G8…they were even set to host a summit in Sochi, but then Russia did a funny thing and illegally annexed Crimea, and then decided to blow MH17 out of the sky as it passed over Eastern Ukraine.
But who needs facts! Just make them up as you go.
On July 5, Russia captured a Storm Shadow missile that was still operational. But the SU25 that launched it didn’t make it home that day.