The UK has said it is up to the White House ultimately to decide on whether to send F-16 jets to Ukraine. Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, made the comments after talks with Boris Pistorius, his German counterpart, in Berlin, adding that Washington has to decide “whether it wants to release that technology”.
Mr Pistorius said that “it depends on the White House… to decide whether the F-16 fighter planes can be delivered” given that any movement of the US-made aircraft would require American approval. About 25 nations use the multirole jets.
It shows that there is still work to do to make the “international coalition” of jets that the UK and the Netherlands have said they want to build a reality. Ukraine has said that modern jets from the West are vital to protect the nation from Russian rocket attacks and to reclaim territory taken by Russia in a long-expected counteroffensive. In an address to the more than 40 nations of the Council of Europe on Wednesday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Of course, there is still much to be done. We need additional air defence systems and missiles. We also need modern fighter jets, without which no air defence system will be perfect. And I am sure we will get there.”
This was all part of the web of diplomatic efforts on Wednesday around the invasion of Ukraine. Turkey announced an extension of the deal allowing Ukraine to export millions of tonnes of grain through the Black Sea a day before it expired.
The deal between Ukraine and Russia was agreed last July – with the help of the UN and Turkey – following fears of global food shortages as a result of Moscow’s invasion. Ukraine is one of the world’s top producers of grain, but its access to ports in the Black Sea were initially blocked by Russian warships following the start of the invasion. The deal has been renewed several times since last July, but Moscow had initially appeared unwilling to extend the pact this time unless a list of demands regarding its own agricultural exports was met.
Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, hailed as the extension as “good news for the world” after Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan announced the renewal in a televised speech. The UN chief said outstanding issues remain but discussions would continue. Ukraine welcomed the extension but a senior official said Russia must not be allowed to sabotage the agreement and must stop using food “as a weapon and blackmail”.
“We welcome the continuation of the initiative, but emphasise that it must work effectively,” Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Facebook.
Meanwhile, in Kyiv, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told a Chinese envoy that his country would not accept any proposals to end the war with Russia that involved it losing territory or freezing the conflict. Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs and former ambassador to Russia, met Mr Kuleba the ministry said in a statement. The visit is the first to Kyiv by a senior envoy from China, which has burgeoning ties with Russia, since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
“Kuleba briefed the special envoy of the Chinese government in detail on the principles of restoring a sustainable and just peace based on respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the ministry said. “He stressed that Ukraine did not accept any proposals involving the loss of its territories or the freezing of the conflict.”
The senior Chinese official’s trip to Europe is expected also to include talks in Russia, Poland, France and Germany – with Beijing seeking to play the role of peace broker. However, given the close relationship between China and Russia and the fact that Beijing has refused to directly condemn Moscow for the invasion, Western nations, led by the US, have questioned China’s credibility.
On the ground, Ukraine’s military said it had made new advances on Wednesday in heavy fighting near the eastern city of Bakhmut, and that Russia was continuing to send in new units, including paratroopers.
The remarks were the latest by Kyiv in the past week to indicate that Russian forces have been pushed back in some areas around Bakhmut – control of which has taken on symbolic significance for both sides – after months of bloody combat.
“We are successfully conducting a defensive operation, counterattacking and during this day our units have penetrated up to 500m in some parts of the Bakhmut front,” military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi told Ukrainian television.
Ukraine and Russian also traded accusations over a rocket attack on Kyiv early on Tuesday. Kyiv denied that a Russian hypersonic missile – one of Moscow’s most advanced weapons – had destroyed a US-made Patriot missile defence system that arrived in Ukraine a few weeeks ago.
Russia’s defence ministry made the assertion on Tuesday after an overnight air attack on the Ukrainian capital. US officials later suggested that a Patriot system had probably suffered damage but that it did not appear to have been destroyed.
“I want to say: do not worry about the fate of the Patriot,” Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television.
The Patriot system is one of an array of complex air defence units supplied by the West to help Ukraine repel Russian airstrikes. Kyiv claimed to have shot down six hypersonic missiles during Tuesday’s assault.
In Russia, hypersonic missile scientists have said they “just do not understand how to continue to do our job” after a number of their colleagues were accused of treason.
Three Russian academics who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face “very serious accusations”, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, responding to an open letter from Siberian scientists published on Monday, defending the men.
“We know each of them as a patriot and a decent person who is not capable of doing what the investigating authorities suspect them of,” the letter said.
President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia is the global leader in hypersonic missiles, capable of travelling at speeds of up to Mach 10 (more than 7,000mph) to evade enemy air defences.
Asked about the letter, a Kremlin spokesperson said: “We have indeed seen this appeal, but Russian special services are working on this. They are doing their job. These are very serious accusations.”
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
