NATO-member Norway will donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, whose forces are embroiled in a difficult counteroffensive against Russia, Norwegian media said on Thursday, August 24. The reports came as Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store was visiting Kyiv.
There was no official confirmation of the plan, which was reported by Norwegian broadcasters NRK and TV2. Norway would be the third European country after the Netherlands and Denmark to donate F-16 planes. Ukraine has long pleaded for the sophisticated fighter jets to give it a combat edge. It recently launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s forces without air cover, placing its troops at the mercy of Russian aviation and artillery.
In February, oil-rich Norway announced that it is donating 75 billion kroner ($7 billion) to Kyiv as part of a five-year support package, making Norway one of the world’s biggest donors to Ukraine. The money will be split evenly between military and humanitarian assistance over five years, broken down to 15 billion kroner ($1.4 billion) annually.
On Thursday, Norway announced it would donate anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, saying “air defense is critical to Ukraine’s ability to protect both the civilian population and front-line infrastructure and military units against any type of Russian air attack.”
“This is one of the largest Norwegian donations of military material to Ukraine to date,” Gahr Store said in a statement.
The Norwegian government has long said it is considering sending F-16s to Ukraine. In January, Norway received the first of the 52 F-35s it has ordered. The new fighter jets are to replace Norway’s fleet of F-16. Last week, the Netherlands and Denmark announced that they will donate F-16 aircraft. Denmark said it will provide 19 planes, while the Netherlands has not said how many planes it will donate.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toured several European countries, including the Netherlands and Denmark, but skipped Norway.
© 2023 Le Monde
🇳🇴💙💛🇺🇦
While we have thousands of planes baking in the sun. Biden is a fucking dunce.
The famous “boneyard” in the Arizona desert has an unspecified number of old F-16s, but they’ve been sitting in the desert for decades and would require complete overhauls and updates. It took Boeing 12 years to refurbish 75 obsolete boneyard F-16s back to flying status. Those were made into unmanned target drones, which might even be easier to refurbish since they didn’t need modern systems installed.
https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/boeing-delivers-last-qf16-usaf/?cf-view&cf-closed
We accomplished far more in far less time to become the arsenal of democracy in WWII. We built a Liberty ship every day. We supplied not only our huge army, navy, and air force, but many countries around the world with materiel, and lots of it for the SU alone. We flooded this planet with arms, ammo, and various other gear, and now we can’t even supply enough stuff for a single nation, fighting a run-down little version of the SU? Really?
We can’t even produce our own toilet paper no more. Clinton killed Made in USA forever. Without imported components from slave camps in China, India and the Philippines we can’t even assemble a fucking lighter. 🤒
So true!
But, we can still build awesome weapons.
Sure about that? We can’t even copy the rockets that took us to the moon no more. They were able to carry a shitload of equipment to build a base on the moon and get enough water to survive.
Well, our HIMARS, Javelins, Bradleys, M-777s, JDAMs, High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, et al, sure are speaking a loud and clear language about our weapons, Mikey. 😎
Not loud enough, Franky.
True, Mikey, we still need ATACMS, F-16s, and B-52s!
Copy that, Franky.