Netherlands Joins Denmark In Saying Ukraine Can Use F-16s To Strike Inside Russia
June 4th, 2024Via: ZeroHedge:
The Netherlands is the latest NATO country to announce that it backs allowing Ukraine to attack inside Russian territory using its weapons. More importantly, it has joined Denmark in saying it does not object to Kiev using F-16s to attack Russia.
“If you have the right to self-defense, there are no borders for the use of weapons. This is a general principle,” Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said days ago. Kiev could receive its first F-16s in a matter of weeks.
This came immediately after Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was the first to proclaim such a policy, saying it would be “within the rules of war”.
“We made it clear from the very beginning… that this is part of self-defense so that it would also be possible to attack military targets on the aggressor’s territory,” Rasmussen had said from Brussels late last week.
The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium are part of a US-approved ‘fighter jet coalition’ which will oversee dozens of American-made F-16 fighter jets transferred to Ukraine’s armed forces. The Netherlands alone has pledged 24 jets, and initial deliveries are expected this summer.
Moscow views this ‘greenlight’ as a huge new provocation and escalation given F-16s are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons. Russia previously said it will have no choice but to assume each F-16 could be armed with nukes.
President Putin has warned of “serious consequences” after the Kremlin previously warned that NATO bases from which these jets are deployed could come under attack.
But on Friday NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg shrugged off Moscow’s warnings by saying:
“This is nothing new. It has … been the case for a long time that every time NATO allies are providing support to Ukraine, President Putin is trying to threaten us to not do that.”
“And an escalation – well, Russia has escalated by invading another country.”
According to Pepe Escobar, it appears that the “families” that mostly run the World have likely already decided there will be a nuclear war between the US and Russia—starting approx at minute 13:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSbJEyd_pfs
Retired senior CIA intelligence analyst Larry Johnson is in Russia right now, with an update on the Ukraine (US) strike on an early warning radar system for strategic missiles in the south of the country:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/06/larry-about-russian-patience.html