NATO authorizes Ukraine to attack Russia with F-16s.

Stoltenberg's comments came during an interview with Radio Liberty, a US government-funded television station, broadcast on February 23. In it, the NATO leader argued that Ukraine has the right to self-defense against Russian "aggression," including "attacks on legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine." Stoltenberg did not specify when the Kiev government might actually receive the promised fighter jets. Each NATO member committed to delivering F-16s has different policies and will make its own decisions.

According to Stoltenberg, while NATO countries supporting Ukraine want the fighter jets operational as soon as possible, they would have a much greater impact if the pilots were properly trained and there were sufficient maintenance and support personnel. He said, “So I think we have to listen to military experts precisely when we are ready or when our allies are ready to deliver the F-16s… The sooner the better.”
Ukraine has long requested F-16s as a way to counter Russia's air superiority. Denmark and the Netherlands have both committed to delivering some aircraft, while Ukrainian President Zelensky revealed that the total number of planes committed to Kyiv by the two countries is 42. The first Ukrainian pilots trained in the West completed their course in the UK in December.
The design of the US-made fighter jet means it could have difficulty operating from Ukrainian runways, fueling speculation that it might fly from Poland, Romania, or the Baltic states.
Russia has repeatedly warned that deploying F-16s would escalate conflict and could even lead to the risk of nuclear war because the F-16s are capable of carrying B61 ​​gravity bombs. “So, if one of those planes takes off from a NATO country – what would that be? An attack on Russia. I won’t describe what might happen next,” Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the National Security Council of the Russian Federation, said in an interview on February 22.