The commander, General Valeri Zalužnyi, also harshly criticizes those allies who have considered that Ukraine does not need F-16 fighters.
Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhnyi defend The Washington Post in the interview, Ukraine’s right to carry out attacks on the Russian side.
However, according to him, such attacks are carried out only with weapons made in Ukraine.
– This is our problem and it is up to us how to kill the enemy. If our partners are afraid to use their weapons, we will kill with ours. But only as much as necessary.
The Western allies who armed Ukraine have demanded that the weapons they provided are not used in attacks on Russian territory. The background is the fear of the expansion of the war.
– In order to save my people, why do I need to ask someone for permission to do what to do on Russian territory? Zalužnyi wonders.
Ukraine has extremely rarely taken responsibility for attacks directed at Russian territory.
In a rare newspaper interview, Zalužnyi harshly criticizes those allies who have considered that Ukraine does not need F-16 fighters. The Western allies’ own armies would never fight like this, he adds.
The US has given other countries the green light to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but has so far refused to supply them itself. Fighters will not be delivered to Ukraine until next year.
The Netherlands and Denmark lead an 11-nation coalition to train Ukrainian soldiers in the use of F-16 fighter jets and eventually help Ukraine acquire them. The training starts in August in Denmark.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier this week that Russia considers the F-16 fighter jets given to Ukraine by Western countries a “nuclear threat”. He justified this by saying that US-made F-16 fighters can be built with the ability to carry nuclear weapons.