00:00 Authorities say Russian strikes targeted the capital for a third straight night.
00:05 Air defences intercepting drones launched at Kiev and surrounding areas.
00:09 The attacks come after a NATO summit wrapped up in Lithuania yesterday, where President
00:14 Vladimir Zelensky was given security guarantees.
00:17 But no timeline on when Ukraine will be joining the military alliance.
00:22 Russia's Foreign Minister says Moscow will view F-16 fighter jet transfers to Ukraine
00:29 as a nuclear threat.
00:30 Sergei Lavrov clarifying his position over the plane's capacity of carrying nuclear weapons.
00:36 Ukrainian pilots are being trained on how to fly F-16s, but countries have stopped short
00:42 of making concrete pledges.
00:44 Galba Craig has more on this story from Kiev.
00:46 Dmitry Kuleba, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, reacted to the words of his counterpart
00:53 in Russia, Sergei Lavrov, predictably really saying Ukraine will receive the F-16 fighter
01:00 jets according to the timetable and Russia will accept it.
01:04 This after Lavrov had said that the West giving Ukraine F-16s would be considered by Russia
01:10 a nuclear threat because these are fighter jets that can carry nuclear weapons.
01:15 The feeling in Ukraine about these kinds of threats coming from Russia really is one of
01:19 weariness.
01:20 They feel like there have been so many things that the Russians have tried to make the West
01:24 believe might be a red line in terms of nuclear weapons use going back to September 22, at
01:30 least when they annexed several regions of Ukraine and suggested that incursions into
01:36 what Russia had dubbed Russian territory would be met with a nuclear reaction.
01:41 Of course, no nuclear weapons have been used by Russia so far.
01:45 It's not that the Ukrainians completely rule out that Russia could use nuclear weapons.
01:51 Some of the country's leadership pretty much do.
01:55 Alexei Danilov, for example, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, is
01:59 absolutely convinced that Putin would be too cowardly to ever use them.
02:03 Others say the threat is there but it's very small.
02:05 The costs for Russia would be so high they really don't think it's very plausible.
02:09 Also because where would they use them?
02:11 What would be the utility of it?
02:13 And so the Ukrainians are constantly trying to persuade their Western partners that it
02:17 is safe to give them the weapons that they need, that the greater danger is in not giving
02:22 Ukraine the weapons that it needs.
02:24 And the country clearly needs these advanced fighter jets very, very badly if its counter
02:29 offensive in the south and east of the country is to succeed.
02:33 So they're really desperate for these jets.
02:35 And they are underlining that they don't think that Russia's nuclear blackmail should be
02:41 taken seriously and that it would even be a dangerous precedent to give in to that kind
02:45 of blackmail.
02:45 On the other hand, of course, the Ukrainian authorities, when we're not talking about
02:49 nuclear weapons use per se but about a different kind of nuclear threat, the idea that the
02:54 Russians could blow up part of the Zaporizhia nuclear power station which they currently
02:59 occupy, that Kiev sees as a very real threat.
