TELEGRAPH
Russia will not attack Nato, but Western bases hosting F-16 fighter jets destined for Ukraine would be “legitimate targets”, Vladimir Putin has warned.
“We have no aggressive intentions towards these states,” the Russian president told a group of air force pilots while on a visit to a training centre.
“The idea that we will attack some other country – Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czechs – is complete nonsense. It’s just drivel,” he added.
However, if F-16 aircraft supplied to Ukraine take off from airfields in “third countries”, they could be shot down, Putin said.
Fears that Russia is planning to launch an attack on a Nato member state have grown since the invasion of Ukraine.
Most recently, Denmark’s defence minister warned last month Russia could go to war with Nato in as little as three years.
Ukraine has called for the West to supply it with F-16s for months, with the United States finally agreeing to allow deliveries of the jets in August, swiftly followed by Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.
The aircraft are seen as crucial for protecting against Moscow’s development of modified Soviet-era “glide bombs”, which it used to devastating effect last month to seize Avdiivka – Russia’s most significant territorial advance since the capture of Bakhmut in 2022.
