Sputnik
The Russian Foreign Ministry has once again warned that Russia will treat F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine as nuclear-capable weapon systems, regardless of their model, and will consider their deployment a deliberate provocation.
Ukraine is slated to receive its first F-16s later this year, with Ukrainian pilots undergoing training to operate the fighter jets.
Moscow has consistently cautioned against their deployment, raising concerns that the warplanes could be equipped to carry nuclear bombs.
"The primary and most likely nuclear weapon that the F-16 can carry is the B61[-12] gravity bomb – which has been continually maintained and improved for both accuracy and reduced yield, so smaller than its predecessors but able to be guided," retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik.
"As of November 2020, the B61-12 was in production, with the program to be completed in 2026, and destined to serve through the 2040s. The F-16 C and D models can carry this payload," she added.
On December 13, 2023, The War Zone (TWZ) published a photograph of an F-16 at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, seemingly carrying a training version of the B61-12 under its wing.
"F-16s delivered to Ukraine introduce risk, and also make little sense from a defensive perspective," Kwiatkowski stressed, offering three different scenarios being played out by NATO and the US in Ukraine.
First, the delivery of European older F-16 models is directly designed to clear old inventory and create new markets for US weapons systems in and out of NATO.
"Second, the messaging around the F-16 is such that it has become a red line for Russia, and as such, sending these platforms to Ukraine moves the battlefront to the western side of Ukraine, increases the damage to Ukraine prior to an inevitable peace, and further creates unwarranted fear in Europe. This may be the main reason for the F-16 'gift'," she said.
Third, while the F-16 A and B models, common in European air forces, cannot carry the B-61 nuclear bombs as designed, they can serve as sacrificial decoys to purposely escalate the conflict, according to Kwiatkowski.
She also did not rule US President Joe Biden's administration using a new military crisis in Europe as a pretext to delay or suspend US elections — where the geriatric leader faces defeat by his 2020 opponent Donald Trump.
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