Zelensky Requests NATO Protection for New F-16 Fighter Jets
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on NATO allies to help protect Ukraine’s newly acquired F-16 fighter jets, confirming that the first of the warplanes arrived on Sunday. Although Global247news reporters first sighted them earlier in the week.
“These jets are in our sky, and today you see them,” Zelensky announced from an undisclosed airbase, standing in front of two jets while others flew overhead.
Faced with an increased Russian missile assault targeting the Western-acquired aircraft, Ukraine may station some of the F-16s at foreign bases to safeguard them from Russian strikes, according to a senior military official. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow might consider strikes on facilities in NATO countries if they host warplanes used in Ukraine.
The arrival of the F-16s is expected to boost morale on the Ukrainian frontlines, which have been battered by relentless Russian strikes. Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that the addition of the F-16s “means that more occupiers will be neutralized.”
In a show of continued resistance, Ukraine sunk a Russian submarine and struck a Russian airfield over the weekend, maintaining its counteroffensive of long-range attacks against Russian targets, officials reported.