WWIII: Sunak Signals That Britain Will Provide Ukraine With Fighter Jets
Rishi Sunak, the country’s prime minister, announced that the UK will begin training Ukrainian pilots
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Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, signaled Thursday that the UK will eventually provide Ukraine with fighter jets after announcing plans to train Ukrainian pilots.
He reiterated earlier comments that “nothing is off the table” in terms of weapons for Kyiv, and said training these pilots would be the first step in the process.
“When it comes to fighter combat aircraft, of course, they are part of the conversation,” he said during a press conference in England standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to The New York Times. “We do need to make sure that they can operate the aircraft that they potentially could be using.”
The Ukrainian air force is generally comprised of Soviet-era Russian fighters, mainly the Mig-29, which first flew in 1977.
Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s deputy foreign affairs minister, said, “A victory of Ukraine without modern air force is scarcely imaginable. That’s why we urgently need Western fighter jets like F-16 & F35 as well as Eurofighter & Tornado. Let’s do it together dear allies in DC & Berlin.”
Earlier this month, Ben Wallace, the UK defense secretary, said Britain has yet to make a “solid decision” on the issue.
“I’ve been involved with this for a pretty long time. And I’ve learned two things: never rule anything in and never rule anything out... For now, I don’t think that’s the right approach … What’s going to move on this conflict this year is going to be the ability for Ukrainians to deploy western armor against Russia,” he said.
Col. Yuriy Ihnat, the spokesman of the Air Force Command from Ukraine, said in July that two squadrons of 12 F-16s, and some reserves, would turn the tide of the war.
“To learn the first stage of takeoff and landing and flying from point A to point B, it will take a few weeks, but to learn how to fight on it, to learn how to use missiles, we will take around six months,” Ihnat told Air Force magazine.
TREND FORECAST: There is a clear pattern emerging when it comes to how weapons are approved for Ukraine. The first step is Kyiv floats its hopes for a weapon, and the U.S. refuses. Then a “leak” emerges from the U.S. stating that Washington is considering the weapon, and Ukraine makes the request again—except it sells the urgency. Eventually, the U.S. agrees and Ukraine immediately states the next weapon it will need.
As we had forecast, no amount of weapons is ever enough for Ukraine, since Russia is, and will defeat them. Again, Russia has some 20 percent more Ukrainian territory than they had before their invasion and some 70 percent of Ukraine’s power and water infrastructure have been destroyed.
President Joe Biden has insisted that the U.S. is not a participant in the war, even though it has provided Ukraine with some $115 billion in military weapons and aid. But the delivery of these F-16s would no longer hide the fact that the U.S. is actively engaged in the conflict, according to VK Thakur, a veteran Indian Air Force fighter pilot, who spoke with the Eurasian Times.
The F-16 is a supersonic fighter jet that can carry a 1.2 megaton B83 nuclear bomb, which WSWS noted is a key component of NATO’s “nuclear sharing” system in Europe.
Biden noted that these jets would have to operate with U.S. E-3 AWACS aircraft to make any kind of difference. These planes provide “situational awareness of friendly, neutral and hostile activity, command and control of an area of responsibility, battle management of theater forces, all-altitude and all-weather surveillance of the battle space, and early warning of enemy actions during joint, allied, and coalition operations,” the Air Force said.
“Without AWACS cover, Ukrainian F-16s will be cannon fodder for RuAF Su-30SM & Su-35 flying underground radar cover on 24×7 air dominance patrol over the frontline. The F-16s will be just another straw for Ukraine to clutch on in its terminal spiral down,” he said.
Russia could easily target these AWACS, which he said would be the start of WWIII.
Still, the war hawks in Congress are salivating for Russia’s defeat and destruction and are pushing for these fighters to be provided. These senators include Sheldon Whitehouse, Lindsey Graham, and Richard Blumenthal.
They said F-16s would help “erode” Moscow’s capability to continue fighting.
“While the tanks represent a tremendous upgrade in Ukraine’s military, we urge the Biden administration and our allies to send more long-range artillery, such as ATACMS, and fighter aircraft such as F-16s.”
“The combination of tanks, fighter aircraft, and ATACMS will help Ukraine confront the upcoming Russian offensive and go on the offensive in both the East and the South,” they said.
They said it is imperative that Ukraine receives everything it needs to win “now.”
The U.S. and other Western countries are growing bolder in their support for Ukraine because they believe that the Russian threat to use tactical nuclear weapons in the country is not high. Weapons like the Patriot air defense systems and M1 Abrams tanks were once considered a no-go but have since been approved. Ukraine also wants longer-distance ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles.