Putin is terrified of F-16s in Ukraine and he should be.
Since basically the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has been
pleading with its Western supporters for advanced fighter jets. For most of the war,
the US has been staunchly opposed to giving Ukraine these systems,
as they could allow for strikes far behind Russian lines, escalating the conflict.
But now, officials in Kyiv might finally be getting their wish, in the form of US-made F-16s
set to be delivered later this year. As of this video, the training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots has
begun in Denmark, and is set to begin in multiple other NATO countries such as the Netherlands. Back
at the annual G-7 summit in May —with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy as a special guest— US President Joe
Biden announced that the US would conduct its own training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, which
it estimated could be completed in under a year, with basic training possibly taking only 4 months.
But where might all these jets be coming from? How important are they to Ukraine? And
perhaps most importantly, how could they change the outcome of this brutal and unpredictable war?
Let’s start with the question of where exactly the F-16s might be coming from. There are more
than 2,200 F-16s around the world, making it the most popular combat aircraft in use today.
But the most likely candidates seem to be jets recently retired by the Netherlands, Denmark,
and Norway. These would likely be the F-16 AM/BM models, which were originally acquired
in the 1980s, and upgraded in the 1990s. All of these would therefore be aging aircraft with
high mileage and older radar systems. But even with these drawbacks, the jets’ software allows
them to use some of the most modern and deadly weapons in the NATO arsenal, including AIM-120
air-to-air missiles, and stealthy long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missiles,
or JASSMs. Reports suggest that the Netherlands in particular was closely involved in the effort
to get Washington to approve the F-16 training, helping convince Biden of their need in Ukraine.
Interestingly however the F-16s aren’t coming from the US at all. This is probably partially
due to the tensions with China, for which the Pentagon is keeping significant materiel in
reserve in case an air or naval battle breaks out over the Taiwan strait or South China Sea.
The other main reason is that many US policymakers still worry that
too aggressive or successful a strike by Ukraine could force Putin’s hand in ways
we’d all rather not think about. That was the rationale behind the strategy so far:
give Ukraine as many surface-to-air and land capabilities as possible,
while avoiding the potential of an aerial strike inside Russian territory. But this logic has
already been challenged by Ukraine’s use of drones in so-called “shaping operations” in recent weeks,
some of which have reached as far as Moscow. Because of this, the authorization for Ukraine
to receive F-16s and the associated training has been a matter of tension in Washington for months.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and several others have objected to the idea, essentially claiming
that there were too many unknowns, and that Ukraine has done well enough without F-16s.
So the approval for other countries to ship their F-16s to Ukraine is still a big change,
overriding a key condition baked into their initial sale by the US,
which prohibited European allies from sending them elsewhere. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was
apparently one of the driving forces behind the Administration’s decision, as well as helping to
convince European NATO allies to get on board. Yet even so, it’s unclear when any of these countries
will actually be supplying the F-16s in question. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark are working
towards replacing their current F-16s with more advanced F-35s, but have all held back
on actually committing to sending the old jets to Ukraine. Similarly, the UK has offered to provide
flight training, but doesn’t actually operate any F-16s itself. While this may start to change once
the training is complete, there’s currently a lot of hesitation from the West about pushing
Putin just a little too far and ending up in some sort of nuclear stand-off. Some countries
like Belgium also worry about diminishing their own capabilities —not that Belgium is a likely
candidate to be invaded by anyone. Others, like Denmark, have stated that they will reconsider
sending F-16s if others are also doing so, but that they won’t go at it alone. The Netherlands
and Norway appear to be similarly torn, while other countries with F-16s not in the process
of being phased out are much less likely to join in. In a nutshell, at the moment it's pretty clear
that even those countries which have declared support for Ukraine’s push for the jets either
can’t or aren’t willing to provide significant numbers of them in the short to medium term.
Once Ukraine actually gets the aircraft, there’s another set of problems it needs to deal with.
Specifically, they must be able to operate, maintain, and sustain the F-16s, which is not
the easiest task. For instance, a March 2023 study by the Congressional Research Service
identified several crucial conditions necessary to successfully field the jets. The biggest
concerns it identified concern the supply chain. This means acquiring sufficient spare parts,
allocating funding for operations and support, implementing a maintenance inventory system,
training maintainers, and acquiring an ongoing supply of weapons with which to arm their F-16s.
These tasks are difficult enough for countries in peacetime, with previous experience and a
wide base of technical knowledge. For Ukraine, they are likely to be even trickier. Of course,
if the course of the war so far is anything to judge by, Ukrainians will continue to figure
out inventive solutions to the logistical issues facing their military. Russians on the other hand,
have no hope of obtaining advanced fighter jets and are stuck using obsolete human wave
tactics while trying to avoid kicking off a civil war in their own country.
But even accounting for the staggering incompetence of the Russian military,
Ukraine certainly still faces some hurdles obtaining and operating even used F-16s. If
they take to the skies without plans to support these aircraft, they will break down quickly and
most likely become expensive stationary targets for Russian air-to-surface missiles. This is
especially true for the F-16, which can require some 18 hours of maintenance for every hour of
flight time. Basically, if they do things right and don’t rush it, there’s a strong possibility
that Ukraine won’t even be using the F-16s until the end of 2023. This also suggests that many
defense experts believe the war will continue for quite some time, despite the incompetence of
the Russian armed forces and short mutiny of the Wagner Group PMC. By greenlighting the transfer
of F-16s, the US is essentially admitting that the war will not stop any time soon,
and that Ukraine will need continual upgrades to its firepower in a long-term war of attrition.
If Ukraine can get a handle on the jets’ supply and maintenance,
that’s when the training will really start to become important. Like any complex weapons system,
the F-16 was designed to fill a particular set of roles in an existing military structure and
support certain doctrines of modern warfare. To get the most out of them, the Ukrainians will
need to adopt more of the practices and techniques which the plane's design caters to. Fundamentally,
the F-16 was designed to help the U.S. Air Force beat the Russian Air Force in aerial combat. Logic
follows that the more the Ukrainians can fly them like the U.S. Air Force would, the better the
results will be. Of course, other NATO countries have adopted similar practices, but most of these
are also quite different from the ways Ukraine has been fielding their existing fighter jets.
For one thing, the F-16 was essentially designed to be a lightweight, multi-role fighter capable
of doing many different missions well, but not to be the best at any of them. For one thing, F-16s
were definitely not intended to be operated from improvised airfields, as Ukraine has been doing
with many of its current aircraft. They can be especially susceptible to getting debris
caught in their engines, a great way to crash before ever engaging in combat. This brings up
the issue of where Ukraine would put the 200 F-16s it is asking for. RAND Corporation analysts John
Hoehn and William Courtney recently assessed that “F-16s do best on long, pristine runways.
They could face difficulties on the rougher, former Soviet ones dispersed across Ukraine. To
bring in Western aircraft, Ukraine might need to repave and potentially extend a number of runways,
a process which Russia would likely detect. If only a few airfields were suitable and
in known locations, focused Russian attacks could impede Ukrainian F-16s from flying.”
This is mostly because idiotic and unprepared as most of Russia’s military might be,
they still have access to some pretty advanced technology. This is especially
true when it comes to air-to-air combat. Modern Russian air fighters such as the
MiG-31 and Su-35 can see quite far with their powerful, modern radars. They also
have R-37 missiles that have a longer range than NATO-supplied AIM-120 AMRAAMs,
or Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles. In other words, Russian aircraft can potentially spot
Ukrainian F-16s and shoot them down before the Ukrainian pilots see them coming. Some
of this has already happened with Ukraine's current fleet of Su-27 and MiG-29 fighters,
and the improved capabilities of the F-16 are not enough to change this dynamic. Because of
the reach of these Russian fighters, Ukrainian fighter pilots often break off missions early,
or operate far behind their own front lines. F-16s would operate with the same constraints,
limiting their ability to perform air-to-surface missions with relatively short-range weapons like
the JDAM bomb guidance kits. Because of this, even once Ukraine receives F-16s,
it will still most likely have to rely on drones and other current air platforms for support.
There’s also the question of how to get the proper armaments Ukraine needs to pair with
the F-16s. The best way for Ukraine to capitalize on any F-16s it receives will be advanced Western
armaments which can stand up to Russian firepower. The issue? Like everything else in a war, these
can be staggeringly expensive. For instance, a single AMRAAM costs about $1.2 million,
while it takes about two years to make one. The US could always provide existing weapons
like the AMRAAM from its own stockpiles, but that could leave them depleted in the
event of an unexpected conflict, a risk the Pentagon is not willing to take.
However, the real tactical and logistical advantages that F-16s would provide to
Ukraine are long term. A major benefit is that it will be easier for Ukraine to maintain aircraft
whose parts are supplied by the United States and NATO than their current outdated aircraft
manufactured by Russia. In turn, this could also make it easier for Ukraine to integrate their air
force into NATO sometime in the future. And the more Ukraine's arsenal is compatible with NATO's,
the better they’ll fare, and the worse off Putin will find himself. For instance,
Ukraine was previously given AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM) to use against
ground-based radar systems. As with much of their current military arsenal, they managed to attach
the system onto their MiG-29s, but the end result was far from ideal, since Soviet-era fighters were
not designed to fire U.S.-manufactured missiles. F-16s with modern software will enable Ukraine
to employ HARMs and other modern weapons systems much more effectively. This includes missiles such
as the AIM-9 Sidewinder and the AIM-120 —which the United States and NATO are likely to provide— will
be useful for Ukraine’s defense against Russian cruise missiles like the Kh-101 and Kh-555,
and against Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones. Ukraine's stockpiles of Soviet
S-300 surface-to-air missiles are running out pretty quickly, and there are only so
many Patriot missiles available. So even if Russia will still have some superior jets,
the F-16's air-to-air capability will definitely help those ground-based defenses last longer.
And it’s pretty clear that this is necessary. Western military analysts have estimated that
Ukraine’s combined fleet, belonging to air and ground forces, has been depleted by more than
a third since the Russian invasion began. Ukraine has lost at least 60 of its 145 fixed-wing planes
and 32 of 139 helicopters, according to classified U.S. military information leaked
on the social media platform Discord in recent months. The Ukrainian air force rarely reveals
numbers regarding its fleet or other details of tactical importance, including incidents
of planes shot down or otherwise destroyed. But officials have acknowledged losses from the more
than a year of war, as well as difficulties with the repair and replacement of damaged planes.
Another big question is whether the United States will supply powerful JASSMs to use with
the F-16s. These deadly, low detection cruise missiles are incredibly long range, and have a
1,000 pound armor piercing warhead. It also seems like there’s a good chance of this happening.
Britain has provided the Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles and Ukraine has already put them
to use. Storm Shadow is generally similar to the baseline version of JASSM in terms of size, range,
employment, and observability, so providing JASSMs would not necessarily be an escalation.
F-16s utilizing JASSMs could allow for Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov's stated
long-term plan to retake Crimea “without a fight.” Carrying out such a plan would
require cutting off Russian troops in Crimea from their supply lines via the Kerch Strait Bridge,
ports like Sevastopol, and the land route from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. JASSMs could
give Ukraine the ability to fire on and destroy logistics hubs like naval bases,
ammunition depots, bridges, and command and control facilities deep within Crimea.
It could also serve as an alternative to the surface-to-air ATACMS missile, which Ukraine
has requested but not yet received. The United States has quite a few more JASSMs than ATACMS,
so it might be willing to supply them to augment Ukraine’s current arsenal of Storm Shadows.
Another area F-16s could be helpful to Ukraine is as a good old-fashioned deterrent. While Putin
clearly has no desire for the war to end, he was recently forced to replace General
Sergei Surovikin, due to his involvement in the Wagner Group’s attempted coup against
Putin himself. Surovikin was widely known as one of Russia’s most trigger-happy commanders,
willing to launch indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population of Ukraine. But whoever
he gets replaced with may be less gung-ho about ordering air and drone strikes on Kyiv,
especially if Ukraine has 200 F-16s with which to respond. While there’s little chance that Russian
attacks will stop in the east, Ukraine having advanced fighter jets may give it enough of an
edge in the air that attacks in the west of the country are diminished. The fact that Ukrainian
jets and helicopters have been forced to attack cautiously for the entire war means that F-16s
and their longer-range weaponry could prove very useful here. Ukrainian pilots have developed a
tactic of flying low, unleashing unguided rockets from Ukrainian territory, then immediately backing
away to avoid anti aircraft fire. Russian aircraft use similar tactics but have the
advantage of superior firepower, which allows them to fire rockets and gliding bombs from a
greater distance. A recent report from the Royal United Services Institute assessed that because of
these tactics, “even a small number of Western fighters could have a major deterrent effect.”
While F-16s likely will not grant Ukraine air superiority, they will make the defense of
the country’s air space easier and, if paired with JASSMs or similar weapons,
provide an important means of launching the type of long-range weapons which are likely necessary
to force Russia out of Crimea and other fortified areas. A group of Ukrainian Parliament members
speaking at the German Marshall Fund in Washington in April said they wanted the F-16 because its
radar can locate targets on the ground hundreds of miles away, allowing pilots to stay safely
over Ukrainian-held territory while launching weapons into Russian-occupied areas. In addition
to defense and deterrence, this also suggests that F-16s could feature in the later stages
of the counteroffensive currently underway, which could take the entire rest of the year. Col. Yuriy
Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force seemed to confirm this, telling the New York Times
that F-16s could provide cover for Ukrainian troops trying to advance and hold formerly
occupied areas. He noted that it could also be used to cut off Russian planes that have started
launching guided missiles more than 30 miles from the Ukrainian front line, to defend the sea route
that lets Ukrainian grain leave the country, and to push further into the Russian-occupied oblasts.
All of this helps explain why the Kremlin seems so nervous about the possibility of F-16s in
Ukrainian hands. When it became clear the US would greenlight their training and eventual
transfer Russian diplomats had a minor meltdown. First, deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov
said any transfer of the U.S. jets to Ukraine would be pointless, since Russia’s capabilities
are more than enough to end the ‘special military operation’ whenever they want. Now, by this point,
we probably don’t need to tell you that’s pure BS. When that was pointed out, Russian Ambassador
to the United States Anatoly Antonov went on to claim that even if the F-16s were transferred,
they couldn’t possibly be effective, since Ukraine lacks the proper infrastructure,
pilots, and maintenance personnel. While this is slightly more true, given the country’s incredible
adaptability so far, there is no reason to think that Ukraine can’t make F-16s work,
given the right amount of time and training. The Kremlin knows this, and it seems to be
making their threats increasingly desperate. When the statements by Antonov and Ryabkov
failed to scare NATO or the US, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took the stage during a
speech at a military conference in Tajikistan. He claimed that "We must keep in mind that one
of the modifications of the F-16 can 'accommodate' nuclear weapons. If they do not understand this,
then they are worthless as military strategists and planners." This is obviously pretty ironic
considering Russia’s continual failures in military planning for the last year,
but also shows a deep-seated worry from top officials. They likely don’t think that the
US would ever give Ukraine nuclear warheads, but know that even if F-16s do not change
the battlespace in the short term, they will bring Ukraine closer to the West and increase
the country’s military resilience. The West’s response to these threats was also summed up
pretty well in the reply to Lavrov by Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby that "If you’re worried
about Ukrainian military capabilities, then you should take your troops and leave Ukraine."
This back and forth over F-16s highlights a larger trend in the war: that Ukraine’s
warfighting increasingly looks like that of the West, rather than a former Soviet
satellite state. Because Russia failed so badly to understand the depth of Ukrainian resolve,
every step Putin and his cronies take pushes Ukraine towards NATO, the EU, and the US. By
the end of the war —whenever that might come— Ukraine will have extremely close military,
economic, and political ties to Europe and America. The F-16s are just the latest part
of this broader shift, but the fact that their transfer has been approved is another sign that
the Ukraine of 2021 is not the same as the one we see today. War has transformed the country
into a major regional military power, with advanced equipment and some of Europe’s most
battle-hardened troops. Even though Putin somehow hasn’t learned this lesson yet,
there’s no doubt that Ukraine will play a major role in the future of European security.
But what do you think? What does the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine mean for
the future of the conflict? And will it be enough to overcome Russia’s military? Let us
know in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe for more military content and analysis.