Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy has claimed that the Netherlands will send all 42 of its F-16 fighter jets after he met with outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Sunday.
In his second visit to the Netherlands since the Russian invasion last year, Mr Zelensky toured a military airbase in Eindhoven on Sunday morning, where globalist lame-duck Prime Minister Mark Rutte showed off his fleet of F-16 fighter jets, which have been cleared by the Biden administration to be sent into battle in Ukraine, with Washington having final say over where they are deployed given that they are made in the United States.
Following the meeting, Zelensky posted on social media: “Today, we took another step to strengthen Ukraine’s air shield. F-16s. These jets will be used to keep Russian terrorists away from Ukrainian cities and towns.
“Prime Minister Mark Rutte and I reached an agreement on the number of F-16s to be transferred to Ukraine once our pilots and engineers have completed their training. 42 jets. And this is just the beginning. Thank you, Netherlands!”
However, despite Zelensky’s proclamation, the Dutch Ministry of Defence has so far refused to confirm exactly how many F-16s it would be sending to Kyiv, with 42 representing the country’s entire stock of the American-made jets.
The Dutch government has also refrained from giving a specific timeline as to when the warplanes will be delivered, explaining that such a determination will need to wait until there are enough Ukrainian pilots properly trained on how to operate them, according to public broadcaster NOS.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who is currently serving in a caretaker role until the autumn elections, was also far more ambiguous than his Ukranian counterpart, saying: “We need some of them to help with training in Denmark and soon also in Romania. We’re going to see if we can supply the rest of the devices, but we don’t yet know exactly how many we can deliver.”
In July, a Western coalition of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom pledged to help train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s.
President Zelensky has a history of putting the cart before the horse when it comes to the supply of Western fighter jets, with the Ukrainian leader using his address to the British parliament in February to thank the United Kingdom “in advance” for providing the country with warplanes before any announcement was made by London.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (R) react as they sit in an F-16 fighter jet in the hangar of the Skrydstrup Airbase in Vojens, northern Denmark, on August 20, 2023. (Photo by Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT (Photo by MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
Following his visit to the Netherlands, Zelensky also travelled to Denmark on Sunday, where he said he would also be discussing the issue of F-16s with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. The pair were both pictured sitting inside the cockpit of one of Demmark’s F-16s. Frederiksen said that Denmark is prepared to send 19 of the jets to Ukraine.
In May, President Joe Biden said that the Ukrainian president had provided him “flat assurance” that F-16 jets would not be used to attack the Russian mainland for fear of expanding the proxy war in Eastern Europe into a wider conflict.
However, it is unclear how the Kremlin will respond if American-made jets are used to attack territories Moscow currently controls in Ukraine and indeed considers its own, such as in the Donbas or the Crimean Peninsula, which Vladimir Putin annexed in 2014.
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