CNN
—
The decision by Germany, the United States and other countries to send main battle tanks to Ukraine is more advanced than many realistically thought a few months ago.
The West, wanting to show solidarity and deter a new Russian attack, has let go of fears that more sophisticated weapons could provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin.
With tanks removed from the list, Ukrainian leaders renewed their public appeals against Western fighters.
“Last year I sent a wish list card to Santa Claus, and even fighter planes [were] Defense Minister Reznikov told CNN this week:
Publicly, Western leaders have avoided discussing the warplanes heading for Ukraine, which was officially on the agenda of talks with Ukraine and its allies in Ramstein, Germany last week. did not.
But last year, a Pentagon spokesman declared the fighter deliveries to be “high-risk, with little capability improvement,” while now US deputy national security adviser John Finer said: say They “have not ruled out or ruled out any particular system,” including the F-16.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed to CNN on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had requested the fighter jets. “We are always talking to Ukrainians about their needs and want to make sure we are doing our best to meet them. We want it to be,” Kirby said.
The Netherlands also frowned last week when its foreign minister told parliamentarians questioning the F-16 that there was “no taboo when it comes to what the Netherlands can supply.”
First developed in the 1970s, the F-16 is a highly maneuverable fighter capable of carrying six air-to-air or air-to-surface missiles under its wings. It is no longer purchased in the United States, but newer iterations have been purchased in countries such as Bahrain and Jordan.
The fighter’s current manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is taking notice. The company’s chief operating officer, Frank St. John, told the Financial Times this week that there was “a lot of discussion about the third-party transfer of the F-16,” and a new version of the F-16 that just entered production could help. We acknowledged that there is a possibility.We will meet the latent demand.
The Dutch case is instructive in understanding Ukraine’s appeal to the F-16, which is at least partly due to the fact that European countries are phasing out planes that are being phased out in favor of the new F-35. It can be understood as opportunism to figure out before they resell to others.
for ukrainian armyRussia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for the separatists in the East began an inexorable transition from Soviet weapons to more modern Western equipment.
In the long term, it is widely understood that Ukraine will switch from its current Soviet-era MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su-27s to Western jets.
Ukraine’s defense minister is “playing a little game to warn everyone that this request may come sooner or later,” retired Dutch Air Force colonel Peter Weininga, now a defense analyst, told CNN. told to
Netherlands 24 F-16s leftbut it plans to get rid of them by next year as it switches to the next-generation F-35.In 2021, it has sold 12 aircraft to the United States for use as trainers.
“Many F-16s will be available for sale to other countries, in this case to Ukraine,” Waininga said. “I think they are waiting for the right time to move forward with a formal request.”
Like many other Western weaponry ever offered, the F-16 is unlikely to be a magic bullet.
“On their own, I wouldn’t say they’re game-changing,” said Tim Swais, research director at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies. Long-range systems such as — combined with the F-16 — could help Ukraine turn the tide.”
A major obstacle is Russia’s extensive air defense network, said Justin Bronk, a senior air force researcher at the Royal United Service Institute (RUSI).
“The idea that Western fighters would allow Ukraine to launch combat air sorties over Russian airspace in the usual sense is pure fantasy,” Bronk said. “The reality is that Western fighters, like Ukraine today, will be greatly constrained by surface-to-air threats from Russia’s ground defense systems.”
The F-16 will be the primary defensive weapon for the Ukrainian military in the near future, he said, and is good at shooting down Russian missiles and defending against now-rare Russian flights over the front lines.
Even as a weapon to protect ground forces, the F-16 could prove to be a tricky weapon for Ukraine to have in its arsenal, he said.
“Most of Western air-to-ground munitions for close air support are optimized to be delivered from mid-altitude using target pods, but because of the threat of Russia’s ground-based air defenses, front-line It’s not really viable up close,” Bronk said. .
Both Ukraine’s and Russia’s significant anti-aircraft defenses mean that after nearly a year of war, neither country has achieved air superiority.
“Ukraine will need to achieve some degree of air superiority in order to be able to operate the F-16 effectively,” Waininga said. “This means that Ukraine must first and foremost destroy the Russian S-400 air defense system, and preferably the S-300 as well.
“It’s not all about supplying Ukraine with F-16s. The West will have to enable them to gain air superiority on the battlefield.”
Russians on Western tanks in Ukraine: “our opinion means crouching”
Even if the West decides to provide Ukraine with F-16s, donors will have to overcome significant logistical hurdles to operate the planes.
Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said last week, “We’re giving them what we think they can operate, maintain and maintain.” am.”
Ukrainian pilots must first be trained to fly jets.
Yury Inat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force Command, told CNN that training could take weeks or months, depending on the pilot’s experience. Brigadier General Ryder confirmed this week that he is “not aware of any Ukrainian pilots currently training in the United States.”
RUSI analyst Bronk said Ukraine has a large number of trained pilots. “If someone is a qualified and experienced fighter pilot of the Soviet type, it is a matter of months to be trained to proficiency on something like the F-16,” he said.
Next, Ukraine should decide how and where to operate its fighter jets.
Part of the reason Ukraine continues to fly planes despite the threat of a Russian attack stems from its use of small air bases. But Bronk warned, “Most of the Ukrainian bases they use for dispersion operations to avoid being hit are, by Western standards, very rough surfaces and reasonably short.”
The biggest bottleneck may be the F-16’s complex maintenance regime. The Biden administration resisted sending M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine until this week. This is because maintenance of turbine-driven machines is complicated.
F-16s are operated by many European countries, including neighboring Poland, and serious problems could be dealt with abroad. However, daily maintenance should be done by Ukrainian technicians.
“These are incredibly complex aircraft, especially from a software perspective,” said Bronk. “And they are designed and built very differently than the MIG-29 and Sukhoi-27 aircraft that highly skilled Ukrainian engineers are accustomed to operating and maintaining.”
Depending on how fast the F-16 flies, Ukrainian technicians could be trained for months, or Western contractors could be sent to Ukraine, where they could be exposed to Russian attack.
As with any other decision to send weapons to Ukraine, the F-16 tranche is a matter of politics.
“The political issue is not a logistical issue, it’s a bigger issue,” said Dutch defense analyst Weininga.
Germany does not operate F-16s, but the Chancellor said the fighter was nevertheless out of consideration.
“There is no delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine. “This position has not changed and will not change.”
(The Biden administration last year opposed a Polish proposal to send Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.)
The F-16 would give Ukraine the ability to strike Russia with American-made weapons, even far behind the front lines and outside the territory internationally considered Ukraine, once Ukraine’s air defenses were breached. deaf.
“With an aircraft, you can fly to Moscow, so to speak, and bomb the Kremlin. “And that can lead to escalations that you don’t really want to accept.”
RUSI’s Bronk said the deployment of the F-16 “will not escalate as much as people think.”
“The idea that these are some sort of offensive weapon system is ludicrous unless they are supplied with something like air-launched cruise missiles, which no one discusses,” he said.
Similar to Germany’s Leopard 2 tank, the F-16’s most likely scenario is something of a broad coalition of European donors, reducing political risk to either country.
And since the F-16 is America’s weapon, everything is up to the American government’s decision-making, and the government must approve the resale of the plane.
White House national security officials say they gave Ukraine what it needed, not necessarily what it wanted.
Vice Presidential National Security Adviser Finner told MSNBC this week that “we will be discussing this very carefully with the Ukrainians as they make aid decisions.” “We will tailor our support decisions to what we believe they need and what they believe they need at the stage of the fight they are in.”
