Podcast “Ukraine – the situation”
“The ice is broken”: Mölling sees the way for fighter aircraft deliveries
Lockheed Martin F-16 (left) and Lockheed Martin F-35A fighter jets
© Imago Images
Security expert Christian Mölling no longer sees any major obstacles to the delivery of Western F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. He points out that the USA apparently has no objection to the transfer of the aircraft; the training of Ukrainian soldiers on the machines has already been agreed.
Security expert Christian Mölling no longer sees any major obstacles to the delivery of Western F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. “The ice is broken,” said the research director of the German Society for Foreign Policy on Friday in the stern podcast “Ukraine – the situation”. Mölling pointed out that the USA apparently had no objections to the aircraft being passed on; the training of Ukrainian soldiers on the machines has already been agreed.
The UK and Netherlands in particular are scrambling to source jets and find more delivery partners. However, Mölling made it clear that simply because of the duration of the training, the aircraft would not play a role in the expected offensive by the Ukrainians in the coming weeks and months. He shared the fear that the war in the future would involve even more people and material and would bring even more death and destruction. “War is a black hole,” he said. He constantly consumes material and also people. “I can understand that you are concerned about this.”
However, Mölling energetically disagreed with the idea that the conflict would come to a standstill and be frozen, as it were, due to the exhaustion of both sides without any concrete result. “Because the conflicts are there, the struggle will flare up again at some point,” he warned. “I don’t see that we’re gaining anything with that.” Serious disadvantages are to be expected in the long term, since the other side only gains time: “We are moving from one chamber of hell to the next chamber of hell.”
NATO plans as a signal to Moscow
Mölling welcomed NATO’s intention to deal with concrete plans for a military conflict with Russia. He stressed that he considered a war between NATO and Russia to be very unlikely. This scenario becomes “even less likely because NATO is planning for such contingencies.” A political statement is also linked to the military considerations: “The second side is the signal to Moscow: We’ll train again. We’ll be able to do it.” Mölling explained that the plan was to “stop Russia from taking over large areas of land”. It is about a “completely different form of defense” than during the Cold War.