The American F-16 fighter jets transferred to Ukraine will become a legitimate target of the Russian army, said Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, quoted by the "BBC".
"This will not be a panacea for the Ukrainian armed forces. They should be aware of this. These planes will appear, their number will gradually decrease, they will be shot down and destroyed," Peskov said, adding that Russia has already offered a reward for the destroyed F-16s.
In mid-July, the Russian company FORES offered a reward of 15 million rubles for the first person to shoot down an F-16 fighter jet.
On July 31, Boomberg wrote that the first batch of Western military F-16 fighter jets had already arrived in Ukraine.
The British publication Telegraph reported that fighters of the Ukrainian armed forces have already used Western aircraft for combat flights, in particular for air defense.
"F-16 in Ukraine. Another impossible thing turned out to be completely possible," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote on the X social network.
Kiev has not commented on Peskov's statement.