Nonresident fellow hos Centre of Defence Strategies
Centre of Defence Strategies
The Norwegian National Defence College
Mathopen, Vestland, Norway
Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has repeatedly asked for combat aircraft to protect it from Russian attacks. When the full-scale war started in Feb 2022, Russia had approximately 780 tactical aircraft in service, divided between fighter and tactical strike aircraft. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 361 has been destroyed (not all fighter jets).
The first 14 months of the war was wasted explaining how difficult and time consuming it would be to donate F-16s to Ukraine. In May 2023, another “Nay” turned “Ai” as Biden finally green lit allies requests to send F-16s to Ukraine.
In Aug 2023, the Netherlands and Denmark launched an aviation coalition to provide F-16s to Ukraine. The coalition was joined by Belgium, Canada, Czechia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, the US, and the UK.
Facing a superior Air Force, Ukraine must meet the threat with a combination of quality and quantity.
Make no mistake: The F-16 is an old airplane. It has, however, been upgraded several times since first introduced. The plane is a platform for high-tech sensors, countermeasures, communication fit, and not least, weapons. The latter – not the air frame – will define its efficiency.
The F-16 is an enormous upgrade to the soviet legacy MiG-29 and Su-27 the Ukrainian Air Force is operating. These fighter jets reached their life expectancy years before the full-scale war started.
Despite their obvious shortcomings, the Air Force has still been able to deny Russia Air Supremacy over Ukraine. Russia has been unable to operate fighter jets and attack helicopters over government-controlled territory since March 2022.
Imagine what Ukrainian pilots can achieve with a highly agile combat aircraft carrying high-tech sensors and weapons.
Ukraine has long been targeting Russian Air Defence systems in preparation of the battlefield. Ukrainian forces have destroyed 20 S-300 launchers and 15 radar stations total. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, 893 AD systems have been destroyed since 24 February 2022.
How many F-16 is needed? Ukraine has asked for at least 128 but preferably as many as 160 F-16.
How many will it receive? Open-source information suggests that it will receive between 45 and 60 F-16s in the short term, but potentially 140-160 in the long run.
Denmark: 19 F-16s – Netherlands: 24 F-16s – Belgium: 30 F-16s – Norway: 6 F-16s – Greece: 32 F-16s – US: procurement of squadrons of modern fighter aircraft (including, but not limited to, 30-48 F-16s)¨.
Additionally, France has announced it will supply up to 12 Mirage 2000-5 fighters. Sweden will donate 2 Saab 340 AEW aircraft.
Ukraine has asked the coalition to ramp up the training of F-16 pilot, saying they aren’t producing enough pilots to fly the jets that will soon donated be to Kyiv. “A total of 20 Ukrainian F-16 pilots are expected to graduate by the end of this year — half of the 40 needed to operate a full squadron of 20 jets.”
Cartoon: Michael Ramirez
Belgium : a useful 30. One drawback: they don’t arrive until 2028. Useless.
An operational squadron is usually 8-15. The absolute minimum needed is 10 squadrons.
By the time Ukraine get these planes, the war will be over. Putler will be 6 feet under and Zelensky will be an OAP.
I think the most important is the weapons.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Biden administration will only allow them to use the short range ones.
Also what the author says about the aircraft Ukraine has now is not entirely correct, the SU-27 is a better plane than especially the early versions of the F-16 and is mostly comparable to the F-15.
The problem is that Ukraine lacks modern missiles for them and that they don’t have enough of them (and lost a lot of them a week ago).
In itself, it is a good plane.
Also, most of the fighter jets Ukraine uses are from the late 1980’s and even early 1990’s. They are younger than some of the F-16’s that Ukraine will receive.
The advantage for Ukraine will be quantity and quality of missiles and bombs that the F-16 can carry.
The planes themselves aren’t necessarily better than what Ukraine has now.
^b$rt