West’s Weaponry for Ukraine Pushing the World Closer to ‘Nuclear Apocalypse’: Medvedev
is while Britain, Germany and the US have so far refused to supply Kiev with their own combat aircraft.
On Wednesday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius admitted that his country has neither the training capacity nor the right military equipment to be part of the so-called Western effort to secure advanced warplanes for Ukraine.
Separately on Tuesday, the Kremlin also said that further pledges of military aid to Ukraine by Western countries would not alter the situation on the front, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warning that supplying Ukraine with modern F-16 fighter jets would come with “obvious risks.”
A day earlier, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov also stressed that any transfer of the US jets to Ukraine would be “absolutely pointless and stupid.”
In another development on Tuesday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said that the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets has begun in Poland.
“I am happy that finally, the training of the pilots for the F-16 has started in several countries. It will take time, but the sooner the better,” he said at a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels.
Poland, a neighbor to Ukraine and one of its biggest supporters has said for months it is ready to train Ukrainian pilots on the warplanes.
Ukraine, which largely operates aged Soviet-era warplanes, has placed the US-made warplane at the top of its wish list in an attempt to gain access to advanced jet fighters.
Source: Agencies