Russia is likely to get “very antsy” about the prospect of Britain supplying fighter jets to Ukraine with further warnings of a nuclear attack but little concrete action on the ground, a European defence expert has said.
The Russian Embassy in London warned bombastically on Wednesday, in the wake of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s suggestion that he was actively looking at supplying planes to Kyiv that to do so would have “military and political consequences for the European continent and the entire world”
However, the response from Moscow could be less of an issue for the West than the internal strains over how far and how fast Ukraine’s allies should go, given the recent battles over supplying tanks and US President Joe Biden’s blunt refusal last week to countenance jets.
“The US has just said it does not want this, so Britain’s plans could be seen as a huge annoyance for Washington,” said Nick Witney, the former chief executive of the European Defence Agency in Brussels.
Mr Witney says the response from the Kremlin, by contrast, is likely to follow its playbook of the past year, with apocalyptic warnings that hint at a nuclear attack, but little real action on the ground. “Jets are ultimately more escalator than ground weapons, as they can reach far further. They may get very antsy about it. But they won’t do anything more than before,” he said.
Mr Witney, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says Britain has a track record of tipping Nato into going further than it might otherwise want to.
“They are building up a head of steam for action,” he says. “However, right now, the American and Germans feel they have done as much as they can with sending tanks, and they want to go slower. It is Britain’s way to precipitate the next stage but I would be surprised if others follow suit. At least for now.”
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There are fears within Nato that supplying Ukraine with Western jets could mean exposing them to capture by Russia. “If they get shot down, the complex weapons systems, with all their technological secrets, could get into Russian hands,” Mr Witney says.
“There is also the risk that Ukraine uses these weapons to strike into Russian territory, which everyone – in particular, the Americans – have said they do not want, as it would be seen as an escalation and a propaganda tool by Moscow.”
In March last year, Poland announced it would deliver Soviet-era planes to Ukraine, but the plan was dropped after the Pentagon said that the plan was untenable and Britain warned against direct Nato involvement in the war. At the time, western allies insisted Nato’s support should be defensive and not escalate this war.
However, in recent weeks, Ukraine’s allies have quietly raised their arms supplies to Ukraine, starting with their deliveries of light battle tanks like France’s AMX10-RCs and the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and then building up with heavy battle tanks like Britain’s Challenger, the US Abrams and the German Leopard 2 tanks.
In each case, the allies have initially appeared reluctant to escalate, before one or two countries break the ranks, and then the mass follows. That may yet be the case with fighter jets, even if Western leaders refuse such deliveries today.