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The Netherlands will not limit Kyiv's use of the 24 American-made jets slated for delivery, the country's defense minister said.
Ukraine will be able to use F-16 fighter jets donated by the Netherlands to strike targets inside Russia, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren has said, as Kyiv awaits the arrival of 24 of the American-made aircraft from the NATO ally.
'There is not' a Belgian-style restriction on hitting targets within Russian borders, Ollongren told Politico on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defense summit, in Singapore. 'We are applying the same principle that we have applied to every other delivery of capabilities, which is once we hand it over to Ukraine, it's theirs to use,' she said.'We only ask them to comply to international law and the right to self-defense as stated in the U.N. Charter, which means they use it to target the military goals they need to target in their self-defense.'Kyiv has been lobbying its Western partners to loosen restrictions on the use of their military technology within Russian borders. It said that the inability of Ukrainian forces to strike beyond their own frontiers has allowed Moscow to mass forces for new offensives all across the front.'We have weapons, but we cannot use them against Russia until they cross the border,' Yehor Cherniev—a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and the deputy head of its national security, defense and intelligence committee—told Newsweek last week. 'This is ridiculous.'A host of nations—now including the U.S.—have said that Kyiv can use their weapons against targets on Russian soil, though they have differed in the extent of their support for such operations.More hawkish nations like Poland and the Baltic States have said Kyiv should be allowed to hit any targets it chooses; the U.S. has only given permission for attacks on cross-border targets close to Kharkiv, where Moscow's most-recent offensive is underway. Even then, the White House has said it will now allow certain weapons—such as the long-range ATACMS—to be used.Ukraine's future use of NATO F-16s is a particularly sensitive case, given their strategic value and potential reach deep inside Russia. Kyiv is expecting to receive at least 85 of the aircraft from several NATO nations, with deliveries planned to begin this summer.Not all providers have proved as bullish on their usage. Signing a bilateral security deal with President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said: 'The security agreement stipulates that military equipment will be used by the armed forces of Ukraine and on the territory of Ukraine.'The Kremlin, meanwhile, is continuing efforts to deter deeper NATO involvement in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Western adversaries had 'entered a new round of escalating tension and they are doing this deliberately' by approving Ukrainian weapon usage on Russian territory. 'They are in every possible way provoking Ukraine to continue this senseless war,' Peskov added.
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