(Reuters) -Norway will donate six F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the Norwegian government said in a statement on Wednesday as NATO leaders attended a summit in Washington.
Leaders of NATO member states are poised to unveil new aid for Ukraine to help it defend itself following Russia's invasion in February 2022.
Hoping to change the course of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants the 32-member collective security alliance to send more weapons and money, and to offer security guarantees.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said deliveries of the F-16s by Norway were planned to start in 2024.
A senior NATO official said this week that Ukraine had not yet amassed the munitions and personnel it needs to mount its own large-scale offensive operations.
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024.
12 Comments
Antiquesaving
More weapons, for who?
Every western news from NY times to BBC, have had multiple articles now on Ukraine's manpower shortage, even the nicest article can't completely ignore the " press gangs" (street recruiters) and that men are in hiding!
Snatch and grab and 28 days training, then straight to the Frontline and the odds are they will be killed or wounded within 2 days.
As CBC pointed out the new recruiting conscript rules basically eliminated just about every exemption, interviewing a conscript wounded after just 2 days at the front and he was taken from his home after the new changes.
He was exempt because he just finished cancer treatment and is in remission, now as long as you are breathing and have a pulse, you pass the requirements to be conscripted.
The minimum new soldiers needed to just hold the line is 200,000 and 500,000 to actually fight.
Now there is talk of again lowering the conscription age and possibly conscripting women in order to relieve more men from other duties and send those men to the front!
Yrral
Biden will probably win again,but his president will be weaken,their is an open rebellion against Biden, support of Ukraine lost cause is not gonna help, because the majority of Americans facing their own problems,could care if Ukraine exists,you foreigner are just wasted your time, because what you do not even matter
TaiwanIsNotChina
Good to see allies stepping up to defend Free Ukraine!!!
JJE
RFAF have been hitting airfields all over the country for the last few months.
They will have to operate in Ukraine a few at a time while playing a game of hide-and-seek from Russian surveillance and inevitable missile strikes. Assumably most will be kept in storage at NATO airbases and ferried in when needed.
Any sorties launched from those airbases will not be covered by Article 5: the hotheads in NATO surely won't be that irresponsible, especially with nuclear capable fighters.
Anyone should be able to discern that a token amount of these will not change the overall calculus of the battlefield.
Hints at the overall Achilles heel Kyiv-regime forces now find themselves in - lack of manpower. There will be no future mass counter offensives as in the spring/summer of 2023; manpower has been spent and drained away.
Zaphod
Norway, Denmark, and Holland... acting as convenient puppets for their US masters. If the US government is so determined to get WW3, why do they not fly their own jets in there?
Zaphod
TaiwanIsNotChina
The Zelenski government that has suspended elections, outlawed opposition parties, jailed opposition politicians and killed journalists (remember Gonzalo Lira?) represents freedom? In that case I am wonder how you define oppression.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Because Europe should take the lead on its own security. A puppet is what Belarus is, for example.
The government that is under heinous assault by Russia, yes. Once Russia is out of the picture, democracy can be restored in Ukraine with no problem.
RichardPearce
Taipei, the Azovian regime is ATTACKING Free Ukraine (just as a similar regime was attacking the Free French last century), and has been since 2013.
The only thing that changed a couple of years ago was that the Free Ukrainians got assistance from the country that did the most to win WW2.
2020hindsights
Sure, but they are now reporting that, Russia has already lost more soldiers by invading Ukraine than it had in all its combined previous wars since 1945.
Leaked documents from America’s defence department, suggest that probably around three to four Russian soldiers are severely wounded for every one killed in battle.
That would mean that between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers were out of action by mid-June,
2020hindsights
JJE
And Ukraine have been smashing Russian air defense systems, including an S-500. You can see both sides of preparing for the advent of F-16's in the Ukraine air force.
Yup.
And yet thousands of Russian soldiers are dying in meat grinder attacks every day. Putin doesn't care about Russian losses because he controls the press. In any other country there would be outrage.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Free Ukraine is the part not under occupation by Fascist Russia.
Well they did get assistance from the US, you are right.
JJE
OK. Let's assume for a second the claim of an S-500 holds water. Then one must ponder why the Kerch bridge still stands.
Clearly Kyiv-sources make these sorts of wild assertions.
This is a much superior analysis:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/bombshell-report-claims-russian-casualties