RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Putin issues F-16 warning to Ukraine sponsors

Should the US-made fighter jets make it to Ukraine, Russia will destroy them just as it has other Western equipment so far, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Several NATO members have promised to donate their F-16s to Kiev and have trained Ukrainian pilots to fly them, but no deliveries have been made as of yet. Russia has repeatedly warned the West that fielding the nuclear-capable jets will be an unacceptable escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

“If they deliver the F-16s, I think you know better than others that this will not change the situation on the battlefield,” the president said. “And we will destroy these planes just as we have destroyed tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, including multiple launch rocket systems.”

The comments came during Putin’s visit to the Torzhok Air Base in Tver Region, home of the 344th Training Center for Russian combat pilots, including personnel being trained to take part in the Ukraine conflict.

In case the F-16s flown by Ukrainian pilots end up getting based in third countries, they will be legitimate targets for Russian aviation, Putin added.

“Of course, if they are used from airfields of third countries, they become a legitimate target for us, wherever they are located,” the Russian president stated.

Russia is well aware that the 1970s jet can potentially carry nuclear weapons, and this will be taken into account in combat operations, he noted.

Kiev has lost much of its air force over the past two years, including the Soviet-era jets donated by several NATO members as replacements. The Ukrainian government eventually asked the US-led bloc for the F-16s.

The single-engine fighter is a late 1970s design, originally manufactured by General Dynamics before it was acquired by Lockheed Martin. It requires pristine runways, which are in short supply in Ukraine, prompting speculation that Ukrainian-operated jets might be stationed in nearby NATO countries instead. 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia may have used new guided bomb to attack Ukraine's Kharkiv, local officials say

Russia may have used a new type of guided bomb in airstrikes on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv that killed at least one person on Wednesday, local officials said.

The officials said four children including a three-month-old baby were among 19 people wounded in Kharkiv in the latest strikes since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of which have caused blackouts, including in Kharkiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attack as "Russian terror" and Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the Kharkiv regional police, said Moscow may have used a new type of guided bomb which he described as the UMPB D-30.

"This is something between a guided aerial bomb which they (the Russians) have used recently, and a missile. It's a flying bomb so to say," Tymoshko said at the site of the strike.

Regional governor Oleh Synehubov also suggested Moscow may have used a new type of bomb, saying: "It seems that the Russians decided to test their modified bombs on the residents of the houses."

Russia did not immediately comment on their remarks. It denies targeting civilians although the war has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed towns and cities.

Two residential buildings and a medical institution were partially destroyed, and a total of 14 buildings, including an educational facility, were damaged, Synehubov said on the Telegram messenger.

NEW ATTACK AFTER MIDNIGHT

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, also writing on Telegram, reported another strike after midnight on a city district that destroyed a restaurant and smashed windows in an adjacent building. There were no injuries.

Prosecutors in Kharkiv region reported that a 12-year-old boy was killed when Russian forces shelled the town of Borova, southeast of Kharkiv.

Police cordoned off a five-storey residential building that had been hit, its windows blown out and balconies badly damaged.

"Some people were unlucky. One person was killed, others have shrapnel wounds," said Kateryna Velnychuk, who was with her boyfriend in the building when it was hit.

At the scene, a man with a bandaged head sifted through the rubble of a damaged apartment in search of two cats, which he eventually found alive.

A dead body covered with a jacket lay near the entrance to the building. There was blood on the pavement.

Kharkiv and the surrounding region have frequently been attacked with missiles and drones during more than two years of war, but the use of large-calibre guided bombs is unusual for the city.

"Russian terror against the city is becoming increasingly heinous," Zelenskiy said on X, and urged Ukraine's allies to supply more air defences and fighter jets.

"There is no rational explanation for why Patriots (missiles), which are plentiful around the world, are still not covering the skies of Kharkiv and other cities and communities under attack by Russian terrorists," he said.

RT/Reuters