WASHINGTON: NATO allies announced Wednesday they had started the long-promised transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine as leaders meet for a summit in Washington clouded by political uncertainties in the United States.
With the pomp of the three-day gathering in the US capital, President Joe Biden is aiming to rally the West and also reassure US voters amid intense pre-election scrutiny on whether at 81 — six years older than the alliance — he remains fit for the job.
Kicking off events for the 32-nation alliance with a celebration Tuesday evening, Biden committed a new air defense system for Kyiv and urged unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the Ukraine invasion in 2022.
“Make no mistake. Ukraine can — and will — stop Putin,” Biden said in a forceful speech.
The White House followed up Wednesday by saying that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending F-16 jets to Ukraine.
Biden last year approved the key request by Ukraine, which wants advanced Western aircraft as it struggles to gain parity in the skies with Russia.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the F-16 transfer “concentrates Vladimir Putin’s mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine, he will not outlast us and, if he persists, the damage that will continue to be done to Russia and its interests will only deepen.”
“The quickest way to get to peace is through a strong Ukraine,” Blinken said.
But Donald Trump, who is edging out Biden in recent polls, has mused about bringing a quick peace settlement by forcing Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia.
The Republican mogul has repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO — formed in 1949 as collective defense against Moscow — which he sees as an unfair burden on the United States.
On the eve of the summit, Russia fired a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv where a children’s hospital was reduced to debris.
Biden invited to the summit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who voiced gratitude for the F-16s which he said would better protect his country from such “brutal Russian attacks.”
The new aircraft will “bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail everywhere and at any time,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
The summit will look for ways to “Trump-proof” the alliance including by having NATO itself take over coordination of arms delivery from the United States.
Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also sought a pledge to keep supplying arms at the same rate — some 40 billion euros ($43 billion) annually — that NATO members have been since Russia invaded.
“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the US elections, the US will remain a strong and staunch NATO ally,” Stoltenberg said as leaders gathered for the summit.
Biden has also invited four key Pacific partners — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — as he seeks to increase NATO’s role in managing a rising China.
Ukraine wants firm assurances that it will one day join NATO, which considers an attack on any member an attack on all.
A NATO diplomat said negotiations had settled on wording of a statement that will voice support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”
Kyiv’s membership enjoys wide backing from Baltic and Eastern European nations still haunted by decades under the Soviet yoke.
But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led opposition, concerned that the alliance would effectively be entering war with nuclear-armed Russia as it occupies swathes of Ukraine.
Zelensky, who has achieved hero status in much of the West for his media-savvy defiance of Russia, voiced open annoyance at the last NATO summit in Lithuania at the failure to provide a clearer path to membership.
Other leaders attending the summit include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Putin’s closest partners in the West, who ahead of Washington went to Ukraine, Russia and China on a self-described peace mission criticized by Brussels and Washington.
Biden, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will later welcome their counterparts for gala dinners around the Washington area, which is in the throes of a searing heat wave.
One new NATO leader is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is visiting days after taking office in a landslide victory by his Labour Party.
He will meet both Biden and Zelensky and is expected to confirm Britain’s strong support for Ukraine.
NATO begins sending F-16 jets to Ukraine as Biden leads summit
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NATO begins sending F-16 jets to Ukraine as Biden leads summit
- Biden committed a new air defense system for Kyiv and urged unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin
- The White House followed up Wednesday by saying that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending F-16 jets to Ukraine
Russia hits Ukraine with drones, missiles, kills at least 10 in Kharkiv
- Zelensky said that Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles targeting the energy sector and railway infrastructure
- “There should be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life“
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Saturday, damaging infrastructure and killing at least 10 people, including two children, in the northeast city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles targeting the energy sector and railway infrastructure across the country.
“There should be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life,” Zelensky said on the Telegram app.
“Russia has not abandoned its attempts to destroy Ukraine’s residential and critical infrastructure, and therefore support should continue,” Zelensky said, urging partners to continue air defense and weapons supplies.
Ukrainian air defense units shot down 453 drones and 19 missiles, the air force said. But nine missiles and 26 attack drones hit 22 sites, it said.
BALLISTIC MISSILE SLAMS INTO RESIDENTIAL BUILDING
The city of Kharkiv was targeted by both Russian drones and missiles, and 10 people, including two children, were killed after a Russian ballistic missile slammed into a five-story residential building, Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
“When we arrived here 20 minutes after the explosion, I thought I was going to have a stroke. I couldn’t string two words together, and my legs were buckling,” Hanna, a resident of the destroyed building, told Reuters.
“It’s good that I wasn’t there with my child and that my father was with me. It was ordinary people who lived there. What were they targeting?“
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces carried out massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial complexes, military airfields and energy facilities, the Interfax news agency reported.
In Kharkiv, 15 people were also wounded, and 19 residential buildings were damaged by the Russian attacks, Syniehubov said.
Commercial and administrative buildings, electricity distribution lines, and cars were also hit, he said.
In Kyiv, three people were injured, and the heating was knocked out in 2,806 residential apartment buildings in four districts across the capital after Russian strikes hit an energy infrastructure facility, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
National grid operator Ukrenergo said that emergency power cuts were introduced in seven regions following the Russian attacks.
Ukrainian officials said that Russia also attacked four railway stations and other railway infrastructure in central Ukraine and port infrastructure in the southern Odesa region, setting on fire containers with vegetable oil and damaging a grain warehouse.
