As Italian Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani noted, Rome is working on making a "common decision with its allies" on this topicROME, May 22.
/tass/. Italy does not have F-16 fighters, so it cannot provide them to Ukraine. However, Rome is working on making a "common decision with its allies" on this topic, Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday.
"Since Italy does not have F-16s, it cannot provide them, but we will work on making a joint decision with the allies," the Adnkronos agency quotes Tajani as saying.
The Italian Foreign Minister took part in a meeting of the EU Council on Foreign Affairs in Brussels on Monday. According to him, they discussed, among other things, "the need for the countries of the Western Balkans to join the EU as soon as possible."
US President Joe Biden announced on May 21 at a press conference following the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima that the West will begin training Ukrainians to pilot fourth-generation fighter jets, including the F-16. At the same time, the assistant to the American leader for national security, Jake Sullivan, said that Washington will discuss with like-minded people in the coming months which states will transfer F-16 aircraft to Kiev. He recalled that, according to the US administration, these fighters are not included in the list of priority supplies for the preparation of Kiev by the West for a counteroffensive.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko stressed on Saturday, commenting on the intentions of US allies to transfer the F-16 to Kiev, that Western countries continue to follow the path of escalation in the Ukrainian conflict and that Moscow will take this into account in its plans.
