With the Russia-Ukraine war now approaching the two year mark (in February), Americans might need reminding that the conflict remains a highly dangerous situation which could at any moment escalate into a WW3 scenario.
Zelensky's visit to Washington this week was lackluster, and he left without securing what Kiev is hoping for - that Congress would quickly pass Biden's $106 billion war funding request, which also includes defense funds for Israel. Of course, at this point Zelensky has complained publicly that the crisis in Gaza has taken the world's focus off the need to defend Ukraine from Russia's onslaught.
Though headlines in the West barely took notice, Russia early Wednesday launched a significant ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, which authorities said injured at least 53 people, including six children, with severe damage to a number of buildings.
But with Zelensky in Washington, making the rounds to the Oval office and the halls of Congress, the Kremlin issued a fresh warning saying that if Ukraine's military is granted access to NATO airbases for sorties using western-made planes, in would respond while deeming Ukraine's external allies as direct participants in the war.
The fresh warning was announced by Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the military security and arms control talks in Vienna:
"We already hear comments that, amid the significant destruction of Ukraine’s airstrip infrastructure, the F-16s handed over to Ukraine may carry out their missions from airbases in Poland, Romania and Slovakia," he said during the OSCE Forum meeting on cooperation in security.
According to the diplomat, Moscow will view this as these countries’ participation in the conflict and will force Russia to resort to "response measures."
Even though certain eastern European allies pledged F-16s long ago, it could still be a lengthy amount of time before Ukrainian pilots are fully trained, enough to be deployed in combat on the US-made warplane.
Western officials have in recent months admitted that Russia has the upper hand, and that Ukraine's summer offensive failed, but everyone is now putting in place their 'long war' strategies. The Kremlin's new warning and threat also seems part of this longer term planning from Moscow's perspective.
