Ukraine Rues Missed F-16 Opportunity

U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets "won't be right" for Kyiv's fight against Russian forces throughout this year, according to a Ukrainian officer, ahead of the long-awaited arrival of the first of the donated aircraft in Ukraine this summer.

"Often, we just don't get the weapons systems at the time we need them," Politico reported on Wednesday, quoting an unnamed senior Ukrainian military official. "They come when they're no longer relevant."

Kyiv has long clamored for Western-made fighter jets, boosting Ukraine's ability to contest Russia in the skies and help launch more strikes on key targets.

Kyiv's air force has weathered more than two years of full-scale war against Russia's superior aircraft fleet. The Lockheed Martin-made F-16s, outfitted with more modern avionics and radars, will strengthen Ukraine's presence in the air.

But Ukraine's Western backers resisted promising F-16s. Although several countries, including the Netherlands and Denmark, ultimately committed to providing the jets to Ukraine last year, exact timelines for their arrival have remained opaque.

The first jets were slated to arrive in the first part of 2024, but the Dutch government announced in January that Ukraine would receive an initial batch of F-16s in the "second quarter" of the year.

Before the jets take off in Ukraine, Western countries say, Ukrainian personnel must complete their training programs, and the necessary infrastructure and facilities must be up and running in the country.

All of this, however, has taken time — much longer than Ukraine would have liked. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said that Kyiv launched its summer 2023 counteroffensive too late, as Ukraine waited on Western military aid deliveries. The summer push ultimately failed to retake the swathes of territory Kyiv and its supporters had hoped for.

"Every weapon has its own right time. F-16s were needed in 2023; they won't be right for 2024," the anonymous officer told Politico.

Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian air force for comment.

Experts agree that the timing isn't ideal for Ukraine, and getting the jets operational—with all the infrastructure and logistics that come with them—is a tall order.

The delays appear to have played to Russia's advantage. Moscow is now prepared for F-16s to take to the skies, having worked out where to fit its advanced air defense and radar systems in Russian-controlled Crimea, the anonymous Ukrainian officer told Politico.

Russia's military has been probing to see which locations are best for air defenses to protect Russian assets and keep the jets further away from the frontlines of fighting, according to the report.

Like any competent military, Russia will have learned from its past errors, and shore up its defenses in any potential weak spots, said Frank Ledwidge, senior lecturer in Law and War Studies at Portsmouth University, U.K. and former British military intelligence officer.

"It's not surprising to me that they would ensure to adjust their radar systems" and relocate ground-based air defenses to better target F-16s, Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher with the War Studies Department at King's College London, told Newsweek.

And once the jets arrive, they will be an "absolute magnet for Russian air defenses and Russian aircraft," Ledwidge told Newsweek, but added it will likely be too few to make a real strategic difference across the entire battlefield.

NATO nations have pledged tens of aircraft, but only a handful are expected to arrive in the next few months.

Yet Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of Ukraine's parliament, insists Kyiv will still benefit from the fourth-generation aircraft as the war wears on.

"They will help for our air defense, they will push Russian aircraft further from the frontline," he told Newsweek.

With Russia widely deploying powerful guided aerial bombs across the frontline, "F-16s can help us keep Russian jets further from the frontline," he said.

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