Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. (Photo: EPA-EFE /Sergie Bobylev / Kremlin Pool) 
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an unannounced visit to Ireland on his way back from the Nato summit in Washington to meet Prime Minister Simon Harris.
This summer, Kyiv will finally get the F-16 fighter jets it’s been insisting it needs to repel Russia — but in far fewer numbers than it had hoped.
Kremlin says Nato summit outcome is ‘threatening’ to Russia
The Kremlin said it viewed the results of last week’s Nato summit as “threatening” for Russia and signalling no grounds to start talks to end the war in Ukraine.
“The alliance is demonstrating its determination to remain an enemy for us,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a prerecorded interview on state TV with reporter Pavel Zarubin published on Telegram.
Ukraine’s potential Nato membership has been among the rationales offered by Russia for its “special military operation” — the invasion in February 2022 planned to last days or weeks that’s now grinding through its third year.
The alliance “has clearly said that Ukraine will be in Nato”, Peskov said in the interview.
During the summit in Washington that ended on Thursday, Nato allies promised more support to Kyiv, and outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Bloomberg TV that Ukraine would become a member of the alliance “when the time is right”.
Separately, the White House announced on Wednesday that it would as a deterrent periodically station long-range weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, in Germany from 2026.
In response, Peskov said the confrontation between Russia and the US was deep and there were no signs of an “exit from this spiral”. A dialogue about missile deployment would come at some point, he said.
Peskov on Friday told reporters that the US missile deployment plan was “highly provocative”, and on Saturday suggested a Cold War-type confrontation was ramping up.
Defence Minister Andrey Belousov initiated a call with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday to discuss “reducing the risk of possible escalation” following news of the missile deployments, Russia’s defence ministry said. The US confirmed the call but provided few details.
Separately, Russia planned to “carefully observe” the US presidential election, Peskov said in response to a question on whether the situation might change after the November vote.
Zelensky touches down in Ireland for meeting with PM Harris
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an unannounced visit to Ireland on his way back from the Nato summit in Washington to meet with Prime Minister Simon Harris.
“We discussed support for Ukraine, cooperation in demining and cyber security, as well as illegally deported children,” Zelensky said in a post on the X platform after the meeting at Shannon Airport.
Ukraine’s peace framework, energy maintenance and Ukraine’s ongoing bid for EU membership were also on the agenda, according to a statement from Harris’s office.
The Irish leader said he hoped to visit Kyiv in the “coming weeks”.
It was the first bilateral meeting on Irish soil between Zelensky and Harris, who has led Ireland since April. The two also spoke on the sidelines of the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland in June.
Ireland has provided €250-million in non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine under the European Peace Facility and welcomed more than 108,000 Ukrainians to date under the EU Temporary Protection Directive.
Ukraine’s F-16 ambitions snarled by language barrier, runways and parts
This summer, Kyiv will finally get the F-16 fighter jets it’s been insisting it needs to repel Russia — but in far fewer numbers than it had hoped.
The move to send warplanes — a much-hyped element of this week’s Nato summit in Washington — has been bedevilled by delays, questions around spare parts, and a language barrier between Ukrainian pilots and their foreign trainers, according to people familiar with the matter. Planners also worry that the country doesn’t have enough runways — and those it does have are vulnerable to Russian attacks.
The result is that Ukraine may be able to field a squadron of F-16s, anything from 15 to 24 jets, well short of the 300 its leaders have called for, according to one of the people. Another said Kyiv expected to get six F-16s this summer and up to 20 by the end of the year.
The challenges have been so severe that they’ve raised doubts about the wisdom of sending the jets to Ukraine and whether doing so now amounts to a very costly show of support to Zelensky. In the months since pilots began training, including 12 in the US, the battlefield has changed, with both sides relying on cheap drones and Russia bolstering its air defences.
“People shouldn’t expect miracles” from the F-16s against Russia, said Jim Townsend, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. And in terms of vulnerabilities, “those airfields are going to be nice, juicy targets, and the Russians have already been hitting some of them, just as a welcome to the real world for these F-16s”.
A senior Nato official listed three main issues weighing on planners’ minds. First, the planes must be reconfigured depending on their task, such as reconnaissance or combat. Second, Ukraine doesn’t have many long, high-quality runways required for the F-16s, or shelters to protect them from Russian attack.
Third, the logistics of supporting the planes are complex, from the need for spare parts to maintenance demands to finding engineers. Another Nato official noted that Ukraine was trying to achieve in a matter of months what usually takes three to four years.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s top national security adviser, said on Thursday the transfer of jets was under way and that they would be operational in Ukraine by summer. Denmark and the Netherlands are supplying the planes, with Belgium and Norway also pledging jets. Sullivan added the F-16s were expected to defend frontline forces in the short term and help retake territory “down the road.” He declined to provide further details.
Finland passes new law to stop migrants at Russia border
Finland’s parliament voted in favour of a law that allows the Nordic country to push back migrants that Russia sends to its border as part of Moscow’s hybrid warfare.
The temporary law on “instrumentalised immigration” will allow Finland to prevent people seeking asylum at or near its eastern border, without the possibility of appeal. It’s intended to counter what Helsinki deems is an attempt by the Kremlin to undermine the country’s national security through migration.
“This is a strong message to Russia and to our allies that Finland looks after its own security as well as the border security of the European Union,” Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters in Helsinki.
Finland faced an inflow of migrants last autumn, with Russian authorities known to be assisting the people to the border. While the operation was halted after road checkpoints were closed in November, Finland continues to see it as an imminent threat, and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb told Finnish broadcaster MTV in June that Russia was able to deploy more than a thousand migrants to the border within a few hours.
Read more: Putin’s hybrid war opens a second front on Nato’s eastern border
The law, which will be valid for one year, also allows Finland to consider reopening some of the checkpoints on the European Union’s and Nato’s longest frontier with Russia. Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said after the vote that any such measure would only be deliberated if Finnish security officials deemed it possible.
The outlines of the measure had already been published in March, but it took time to draft the text and pass it through parliamentary committees, given it conflicts with obligations set in international agreements to accept asylum applications at the border as well as with Finland’s constitution.
The Bill narrowly received the required majority of five in six to be declared urgent, followed by at least two in three legislators voting in favour of the law. DM