A pair of European allies are in the process of transferring U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday, in a long-awaited upgrade of the war-torn nation’s air power.
“As we speak, the transfer of F-16 jets is underway, coming from Denmark, coming from the Netherlands,” Blinken said Wednesday morning on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. “Those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression.”
Dutch officials have promised to transfer 24 of the warplanes to Ukraine, while Denmark is expected to provide another 19. Those planes — together with jets that Belgium and Norway have promised to give, bringing Ukraine’s F-16 fleet to about 60 planes — could enable Ukrainian forces to counter the Russian warplanes used to launch the “glide bombs” that have devastated Ukrainian cities in recent months, while hastening the transition of Ukraine’s air force away from its Soviet legacy into a fleet that relies on NATO-standard equipment.
“For the next decade, country after country has vowed to help Ukraine build its deterrent and defense capacity,” Blinken said. “That sends the strongest possible message to Vladimir Putin that he cannot outlast Ukraine. He can’t outlast Ukraine’s partners. So the military trajectory is clear.”
That optimistic outlook was belied on Tuesday by Ukrainian complaints that long-promised military assistance “is still delayed” — and that President Joe Biden seems to believe that “partial solutions are better than better than victory,” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put it at the Ronald Reagan Institute.
“The problem with F-16 [transfers] is the number and the dates,” Zelensky said Tuesday evening. “Russia uses 300 jets on the territory of Ukraine, 300 jets. They have more, but they use 300 jets. We have a decision about some 10, 20 [F-16s]. Even if we will have 50, it’s nothing. They have 300. We need — because we are defending — we need 128. All these numbers, our partners. So, until the moment when we will have 128 jets, we will not compare with them in the sky. Anyway, it will be difficult.”
Still, Zelensky heralded the transfer on Wednesday as a triumph. “F-16s bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail everywhere and at any time,” he said on social media.
Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have requested the jets since the earliest weeks of the full-scale invasion, as Ukraine’s successful defense of Kyiv set the stage for a protracted war further east. Biden and other Western leaders have gradually transferred larger quantities of more advanced weapons, often after lengthy debates about whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would deem the shipments provocative.
The battlefield efficacy of the incoming F-16s will depend on practical considerations, such as the availability of trained Ukrainian pilots and maintenance crews, as well as political ones such as the quantity of jets ultimately provided and the targets that Western allies allow Ukrainian forces to strike, according to military analysts.
“The missing component of air superiority for Ukraine is an offensive air capability, which the F-16s will begin to provide,” a trio of Center for Strategic and International Studies experts wrote last month.
“[T]he Ukrainian Air Force can focus on establishing localized air superiority over limited areas for limited times. Such localized air superiority would be coordinated with Ukrainian land offensives to support a breakthrough operation and would be most effective with combined arms operations. Giving F-16s to Ukraine is an essential move toward establishing air superiority.”
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Still, Dutch officials have cautioned against overstating the value of the planes, while pledging to continue to provide support over the long term.
“There is not one weapon system that can bring total victory,” Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans told European Pravda in a recent interview. “We need to keep supporting Ukraine in all dimensions. We also need to make sure that the strength and the perseverance of Russia is diminished over time and make sure that the position of Ukraine is getting stronger and stronger.”