Russia warns of the risk of nuclear war if Ukraine receives F-16 0
(Dan Tri) – Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine risks leading to a nuclear conflict.
Some Western countries agreed to provide F-16 fighters to Ukraine (Photo: Getty).
`An accidental, unintentional outbreak of nuclear conflict is not something that can be ruled out, which is why all the plots surrounding Ukraine are dangerous,` said Vice Chairman of the National Security Council.
Mr. Medvedev said that the US-designed F-16 aircraft could be a trigger for conflict, noting that Kiev wants this type of aircraft even though it does not have the ground infrastructure to operate them.
`If one of those planes takes off from a NATO country (to carry out a mission in Ukraine), what does that mean? It means an attack on Russia. I won’t describe what
Russian officials have previously warned that supplying F-16s to Ukraine would be fraught with problems.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said in January that pilots in the program `controlled F-16s in the sky with instructors.`
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said that fighter jets will be ready to fight against Russia by the end of the year.
Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have all pledged to supply F-16s to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and several other allies to support pilot training efforts.
The Russian Defense Minister once warned that the entire fleet of F-16 fighter jets issued by the West to Ukraine could be shot down in less than 3 weeks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also previously stated that Ukraine risks drawing NATO into conflict if it deploys fighters in the territory of neighboring alliance member countries.
Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation in Vienna on arms control and military security, also warned that Moscow would respond if Ukraine used NATO air bases to launch fighter jets against Russia.
Mr. Medvedev said Russia’s confrontation with the United States and its allies is not such that it forces people to hide in nuclear shelters, but he described this scenario as worse than the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
`Doomsday clock` is a symbolic tool built by a group of American nuclear scientists, including more than 10 Nobel Prize winners, to warn when humanity is close to the planet’s destruction mark (half-way mark).
On January 23, US nuclear scientists continued to set the `Doomsday Clock` at just 90 seconds before midnight, unchanged from last year.
