Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week Moscow had “no aggressive intentions” towards Nato countries.

The idea that his country, which has one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, would attack Poland, the Baltic states and the Czech Republic - which are all members of the Nato alliance unlike Ukraine - was “complete nonsense”, he said.

However, he warned that if Ukraine used Western F-16 warplanes from airfields in other countries, they would become “legitimate targets, wherever they might be located”.

If we ignore the fact that Putin’s words are worth nothing, it’s kind of important what “they” refers to here. Is it the planes, the airfields or the countries? Because the latter two kind of contradict his assurances.