The secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Tuesday declined to comment on the willingness of several countries to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, insisting on the need to speed up munitions production.
“It is extremely important to increase the production of ammunition,” said Jens Stoltenberg at the entrance to a meeting of defense ministers of the European Union (EU) in Brussels, to which the NATO Secretary General was invited.
Stoltenberg was asked about US President Joe Biden’s decision last week to authorize NATO and EU countries to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
However, the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance only wanted to refer to the training that will be given to the Ukrainian pilots to adapt them “to modern NATO combat aviation standards.”
Despite the insistence of the journalists, Jens Stoltenberg did not comment on the decision, for example, of the Netherlands to send these combat aircraft.
Stoltenberg said he will participate in Tuesday’s meeting in an attempt to mobilize the “transatlantic industrial base” to produce large-caliber ammunition, specifically 155mm, which is used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Given the decision of the countries that support Ukraine to accede to the request that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been making for months, the number two of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this Saturday, quoted by the Russian News Agency. , that the West was promoting an escalation of the war and that it could be implicated in that decision.
NATO member states – most of which are also part of the EU – have so far frustrated Ukraine’s ambitions to receive modern fighter jets for fear they would be used to attack Russian territory in retaliation for the invasion that began. over a year ago and has already caused the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
However, Zelensky assured the American counterpart that they would only be used to defend Ukrainian territory.
Source: TSF
