The military administration of Kiev said that Iranian Shahed drones “entered the capital from different directions” during the Russian attack. A dozen of them were shot down over the city. There were explosions in several parts of the city. It was the third straight night of drone strikes on Kiev.
The group of seven major industrialized countries (G7) signed a declaration on Wednesday after the NATO summit in Lithuania that provides for “long-term security commitments” by the individual states for Ukraine after the end of the Ukraine war. This is intended to deter Russia from another attack on the country.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed anger at Western support for Ukraine. Should Western countries deliver F16 fighter jets to Ukraine, they would be considered a “nuclear threat” due to their ability to carry nuclear weapons, the ministry said.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the online newspaper Lenta.ru that Moscow would see the possession of such jets by the Ukrainian army as “a nuclear threat from the West.” Russia cannot ignore the fact that US-made fighter jets could carry “nuclear payloads,” Lavrov stressed. Moscow has therefore warned the USA, Great Britain and France.
Ukraine is demanding modern F16 jets from its western allies for military support in the fight against Russia’s war of aggression. In May, Washington basically gave the green light for the delivery of such US-made jets to Ukraine, but there are no exact delivery dates yet. The Netherlands and Denmark are leading plans to train Ukrainian pilots on the fighter jets.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden visited Finland at the end of his trip to Europe. He met his Finnish colleague Sauli Niinistö on Thursday, and Biden also attended a summit with the heads of state and government of the Nordic countries. One of the topics was climate change, which Biden described as the “sole existential threat to humanity”.
Finland has a border with Russia that is around 1,300 kilometers long. After decades of neutrality, the state has been a member of NATO since April.
