The primary fighter jets will arrive within the coming month, Mette Frederiksen has mentioned
The primary US-made F-16 fighter jets will arrive in Ukraine “within the coming month,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen mentioned on Monday. The batch will embrace 5 plane, she introduced at a joint press convention with the leaders of different Nordic nations and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Stockholm.
Copenhagen is a member of the coalition of Kiev’s Western backers that promised to obtain US-designed F-16s for Ukraine and practice its pilots final 12 months. Denmark vowed to supply 19 jets of this kind out of a complete of some 40 plane pledged by the coalition. One other 24 ought to come from the Netherlands.
“The primary 5 planes from Denmark will probably be within the air within the coming month from now,” Frederiksen mentioned, answering a query about dashing up deliveries of Western arms and ammunition that would forestall Kiev from dropping the battle. The Danish prime minister additionally repeatedly known as on Western nations to “donate” ammunition and air protection methods to Ukraine.
“[Ukrainians] are combating for the time being and it’s not going into the best route,” she mentioned, referring to the continued Russian advance within the Donbass and Kharkov Area. “The primary cause for the losses on the Ukrainian aspect is the shortage of air defenses,” she claimed.
Frederiksen known as the Ukraine battle the “prime precedence” of the EU and NATO and accused Moscow of launching “hybrid assaults and operations on the NATO soil,” which she known as “extraordinarily regarding.”
In March, Dutch Protection Minister Kajsa Ollongren mentioned that Denmark can be the primary nation to ship the F-16s and would do it in some unspecified time in the future this summer time. The Netherlands was to comply with swimsuit and supply Ukraine with their batch of fighter jets “within the second half of the 12 months,” the minister mentioned at the moment. Earlier this month, Ukrainian Air Power spokesman Ilya Evlash acknowledged that Kiev might get the jets as early as “after Easter,” which was on Could 5.
Kiev has lengthy sought to amass the US-made jets, touting them as a way to drastically enhance each its defensive and offensive capabilities. Some senior Ukrainian navy officers consider that it may be too late for such deliveries, nevertheless. The jets could not be related since Russia has already developed countermeasures towards them, Politico reported final month, citing high-ranking Ukrainian navy sources.
Moscow has repeatedly acknowledged that continued Western arms provides to Kiev would solely extend the battle however wouldn’t change its final end result.
