Ukraine can use Dutch-supplied F-16 fighter jets against military targets deep inside internationally recognized Russian territory, the NATO country’s defense minister has said. Ruben Brekelmans claimed that such strikes would constitute legitimate self-defense under international law,
RT reports.
The Netherlands has pledged to provide Ukraine with 24 of the US-made fighter jets as part of a group of NATO member states which last year established the so-called ‘F-16 coalition’. Fellow members Denmark and Norway have promised to supply 19 and six aircraft respectively, while other nations in the group – which includes Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Greece, Bulgaria, and France – have been training Ukrainian pilots.
The first batch of F-16s, which reportedly included fewer than a dozen fighter jets, arrived in Ukraine in August.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels ahead of NATO’s ministerial meeting on Thursday, Brekelmans said that “international law does not contain any restrictions in terms of distance [and]… doesn’t stop at the border or 100km away from the border.”
“So we allow Ukraine to use the F-16s for their self-defense. It might be needed to intercept missiles or to hit, for example, airfields in Russia. So military targets. And that’s also allowed to do that inside Russian territory or in Russian airspace,” the Dutch minister explained, as quoted by Ukraine’s state-run Ukrinform media outlet.
Commenting on the arrival of the first F-16s to Ukraine in early August, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov predicted that the US-made fighter jets would not “be able to significantly influence the dynamics of events at the front line.”
