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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that any Western air base hosting U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets earmarked for Ukraine were legitimate targets for Russian air strikes, the AP reported, while he paradoxically ridiculed Western concerns that Moscow would attack NATO countries.
“Their statements about our alleged intention to attack Europe after Ukraine is sheer nonsense,” Putin said late Wednesday, in response to Western worries that his invasion of Ukraine could spill over beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Admitting that NATO, in his estimation, has a military budget of more than 10 times that of Russia, while at the same time not excluding the possibility of strikes on European airbases, Putin said that the idea that the Kremlin plans to instigate a broader war with the NATO amounts to mere sound and fury from Western actors.
“In view of that, are we going to wage a war against NATO? It’s ravings,” he was quoted by the AP as saying to military pilots during a visit to an air base.
Several NATO members have promised F-16s and other US-made aircraft to Kyiv, and training of Ukrainian pilots is already underway in Romania and elsewhere in the West. What is less clear is how many Ukrainian airfield runways and bomb-proof hangars can accommodate these jets, and any that can would certainly be Russian targets as well.
“F-16s are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and we will also need to take that into account while organizing our combat operations,” Putin added.
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Boots-on-the-ground bloggers claim Russians downed their own warplane
Citing social media reports on Telegram, state news service Ukrinform reported on Wednesday that Russian forces shot down their own warplane shortly after a takeoff from the Belbek airfield in Crimea.
Eyewitnesses reportedly saw the pilot eject from the Su-35, just before the $85 million air-defense fighter, introduced in 2014, splashed into the Black Sea.
This is not the first time that Russia is said to have downed its own aircraft by friendly fire, Ukrinform reported, citing their December 2023 accidental downing of an Su-25.