Putin ready to strike F-16s at NATO bases? General Tricarico’s analysis

28 March 20244 weeks ago babelfish

Startmag conversation with General Leonardo Tricarico, president of the ICSA Foundation, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, on Putin's words

“We would also hit the F-16s at NATO airports.” Word of Putin.

More than two years after Russian aggression, Ukraine has been soliciting supplies of F-16 fighter-bombers from Western countries for months. Belgium, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands are among the countries that have pledged to donate F-16s. A coalition of countries has promised to help train Ukrainian pilots in their use, Reuters recalls.

In a meeting with Russian Air Force pilots, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that if the F-16s "are used from airports of third countries, they will be a legitimate target for us: no matter where they are." This was reported by the Tass news agency. Russia has no designs on any NATO country and will not attack Poland, the Baltic states or the Czech Republic, Putin claims. However, if the West supplies F-16 fighters to Ukraine, they will be shot down by Russian forces, the Kremlin leader said on Wednesday.

Here is the opinion of Leonardo Tricarico, president of the ICSA Foundation, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

General, how do you interpret Putin's statements about the F-16s which would be hit by Moscow forces even if they were in NATO airports?

I hope that this does not happen, that is, if Ukraine were to one day (I hope for them) acquire operational capability on F-16s, and I hope that all contributing countries agree on this vision, they will be deployed on Ukrainian territory . There is no reason why they should activate Putin's nefarious attentions starting from bases that are not Ukrainian.

In your opinion, are Putin's words still a threat to NATO?

Putin's words want to reaffirm the principle according to which Ukrainians can defend themselves under certain conditions. These are conditions that I personally do not agree with, I have not understood many of the peculiarities of this conflict, but at the moment it seems certain rules are also tacitly shared by Putin, therefore the assumption according to which any offense caused to the Russian Federation with Russian objectives in Ukraine can depart only from Ukrainian territory. This is an assumption that seems consolidated and that Putin claims at the moment. Nothing more than this.

General, what are the peculiarities of the conflict you mentioned?

I do not understand how an invaded country, reduced to a pile of rubble, against which inhuman brutalities from all points of view have been perpetrated by a country that has committed war crimes against humanity in thousands of circumstances (the number of cases set up by the International Criminal Court attests to this), so I don't understand how you can't attack this country in its territory, then identify military targets in its territory and strike them, but you just have to limit yourself to driving it out of its borders. This is an absurdity that was evoked and well defined at the beginning of the conflict, allegedly otherwise there would have been an escalation, and which was accepted. The Ukrainians would need weapons to be able to strike the Russians in depth, as it should be, but these weapons are provided only on the condition that they are used within national borders. This is one of the main oddities of this conflict that I personally don't understand.

Last question: the Russian president also warned that Russia will take into account the fact that F-16s can carry nuclear weapons, specifying that the possible supply of F-16s to Ukraine "will not change the situation on the battlefield". Last year, again at Startmag , she also observed that “the F-16 does not represent a game changer for Ukraine. It is one step further, but it will not turn the tide of the conflict." A year later, are you still convinced of this?

I am more convinced of this than before. I'll give you this example: during the Kosovo war – which is the one I know best – we had 900 aircraft involved, almost all of them updated with the necessary weapons systems and avionics. After 78 days we defeated Milošević, not Putin. How can you think that a handful of aircraft, whose armaments and capabilities are unknown, could turn the tide of a conflict against Russia?

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/putin-f-16-nato-tricarico/ on Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:14:38 +0000.