Zelenskyy: Allies at risk if Kyiv falls
In Denmark, president thankful for warplanes
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Danish lawmakers Monday for helping his country resist Russia’s invasion, a day after Denmark and the Netherlands announced they will provide Kyiv with F-16 warplanes that could be delivered around the end of the year.
Zelenskyy told the lawmakers during a visit to Copenhagen that if Russia’s invasion is successful, other parts of Europe would be at risk from the Kremlin’s military aggression.
“All of Russia’s neighbors are under threat if Ukraine does not prevail,” he said in a speech before heading to Greece, the fourth European country he is visiting in three days, for talks with the government.
Zelenskyy says Ukraine is defending Western values of freedom and democracy against tyranny. He has argued that Ukraine needs to be properly provisioned to fend off Russia’s much bigger force.
Ukraine has been pressing its Western allies for months to give it American-made F-16s. Its armed forces are still using aging Soviet-era combat planes from the 1970s and ’80s, and its counteroffensive against Russian positions is advancing without air support, which analysts say is a major handicap.
In downtown Kyiv on Monday, people welcomed the news about F-16s though they also expressed frustration that the decision hadn’t been taken sooner.
Yurii Lymar, a 38-year-old lawyer, said Ukraine’s Western allies “could approve such decisions a little faster, because every day in this … war means lots of Ukrainian people dying.”
U.S. Air Force Gen. James Hecker, commander of U.S. air forces in Europe and Africa, said last week that he did not expect the F-16s to be a game-changer for Ukraine. Getting F-16 squadrons ready for battle could take “four or five years,” he said.
While some training has already begun for Ukrainian pilots, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Sunday it’s just language lessons so far.
On Monday, Russian air defenses jammed a Ukrainian drone west of Moscow and shot down another one on the outskirts of the city, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
Two people were injured and one of them was hospitalized when drone fragments fell on a private house, Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said.
Also, Russian rail officials said that a relay cabinet used to run train traffic was set ablaze on the outskirts of Moscow, causing delays, according to the state RIA Novosti news agency.
Russian authorities have reported multiple similar incidents across the country, some of which have been blamed on acts of sabotage encouraged by Ukrainian security agencies.
In Ukraine, at least four civilians were killed and 25 others wounded by the latest Russian attacks, according to the Ukrainian presidential office.