KYIV – Ukraine will likely receive it first shipment of advanced F-16s in the next few days, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a phone call as Kyiv seeks to disrupt Russia’s air superiority over Ukrainian skies amid continued battles on December 23 in the east and south of the country.
“Today, I informed President Zelenskiy of our government’s decision to prepare an initial 18 F-16 fighter aircraft for delivery to Ukraine,” Rutte said late on December 22 in a post on social media platform X.
Could people not hype the F-16 deliveries? The media hyping NATO wunderwaffes and Ukrainian counteroffensive, which failed to deliver expected outcomes, just played into Russian propaganda. Kremlin foresaw the axis of advance to be southern Ukraine because the Western freaking hype that that is where the likely axis for UAF. It lost the element of surprise! Compare this to 2022’s Kharkiv Oblast counteroffensive operation. Before, the media had been saying the war could become a long war, until they changed their script when Ukraine thunder run Kharkiv oblast and kicked out the Russians. Everyone then said Putin will be ousted by the end of 2022! That did not happen although Putin’s rule became delicately precarious.
Ukraine does better when their operational security is kept intact and when no one expects them to win. Okay there was the leak of counteroffensive plan but Western media hyping things up doesn’t help! Just stop with sensationalism!