For months, Ukraine has been trying to persuade Western countries to provide US-made F-16 fighter-bombers to fight against Russia, and the United States recently allowed European countries to transfer to Kiev from their own stocks, and recently, the training of Ukrainian pilots for the type of aircraft officially began.
Moscow reacted immediately to the news, but on the usual templatesi.e. on threats of escalation and promises to destroy the machines other than that, not much was said.
Sojgu’s statement today is perfectly aligned with this trend: the Minister of Defense only responded to a journalist’s question about the F-16s by stating that
Russia sees the machines as a legitimate target.
The cover image is an illustration, source: Getty Images
