Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Alexander De Croo sign new security pact.
Ukraine and Belgium have signed a security agreement which includes the delivery of 30 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, in a move to bolster Kyiv’s defense capabilities against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo agreed on a plan that “includes at least €977 million in Belgian military aid to Ukraine this year,” the Ukranian president announced Tuesday, during a visit to Belgium.
De Croo had already announced last year that Belgium would send F-16s to Ukraine in 2025 — without saying how many. Crucially, he also said at the time that the main condition would be whether the next government also agrees to do so, as Belgium is headed toward an election in June.
Story about Belgian F-16s.
Picture shows US F-35.
Guess the AI’s came for Politico’s editors first.
Belgium is replacing its F16s with F35s, that’s why the F16s are given to Ukraine. They are essentially written off and already in the process of being replaced.
A friend taught me a long time ago that in Civilization it is good to send your old junk units into war first, because otherwise they’re just sitting around costing maintenance gold.
Guess that’s what Belgium is doing here. Not trying to knock this, of course. I’m sure they’ll be useful.
Weirdly the picture in the article is an F-16 but somehow the thumbnail that Lemmy pulled is the F-35.
I suspect Politico fixed it. When I first loaded the page, it had the same image you see in the thumbnail. And that’s was what prompted my comment. Looks like they updated the page and it’s now an appropriate image.
OP used “supersonic jet” in the post title to avoid clarification.
Given that the image used by the article is now an F-16 my guess is that OP just shared the link and it was Politico that changed the image and title.
They probably just assume that because they don’t know the difference noone else does either lol. I was in shock for a moment “they gave Ukraine F-35s? The US okayed that? Can they even operate them?”