[SQL] Connecting SQL Developer 24 to MS SQL Server 2016/2019

I have Oracle's SQL Developer 24.3 (uses Java 17 in the background) and want to connect to MS SQL Servers 2016 and 2019. Using third party jTDS driver (which kinda officially supports MS SQL Server up to 2012) I can connect to MSSQL2016 but not MSSQL2019. jTDS is obsolete and one cannot rely on it. (Tools->Preferences->Database->Third Party JDBC Drivers)

But I would like to connect to MSSQL databases using Microsoft's JDBC driver. I tried mssql-jdbc-12.8.1.jre11.jar but SQL Developer does not recognize this JDBC driver and does not offer SQL Server connection at all.

How to solve this issue?

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