The Netherlands and Denmark are supplying Ukraine with the long-demanded F-16 fighter jets. New challenges are now waiting for Kiev.
Munich/Eindhoven – Kiev should finally get them in the Ukraine war: for months President Volodymyr Zelenskyj asked for F-16 fighter jets for the Ukrainian armed forces. Now the Netherlands and Denmark have announced the delivery of an undisclosed number of the fighter jets.
Ukraine War: Netherlands, Denmark supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte pledged the delivery to Ukraine on Sunday (20 August) during a visit to Zelenskyy. “The Netherlands and Denmark are committed to handing over F-16s to Ukraine as soon as the conditions for such a transfer are met,” Rutte said at an airbase in Eindhoven, alongside Zelenskyy.
The United States gave the green light on Friday for the dispatch of F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands. Despite Ukraine’s relief, there are snags to this arms shipment.
Because: For the Ukrainian offensive, which is still stuck at Bakhmut in the east and at Robotyne in the south, the F-16 fighter jets are coming far too late. Too late. Significantly: Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had recently rejected criticism from the West about the lack of military successes by referring to the lack of combat aircraft.
F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine: Can they break Russian air supremacy?
In an interview with the daily newspapers, Kuleba explained that Russian air superiority and widespread minefields are the biggest problems for the Ukrainian troops in their counter-offensive Picture and World as well as with the news website political. The Russians are able to “hit our counter-offensive forces” with combat helicopters and combat aircraft.
No game changer for the counter-offensive, but plannability in the defense of Ukrainian airspace. Long overdue decision.
Much-cited military experts also emphasized this flaw. “You can see that capability gaps like lack of fighter jets have a high price”, recently explained Gustav Gressel from European Council on Foreign Relations, while after considerable losses the Ukrainians are now also driving up German Marder tanks on the battlefield. The big challenge is the training of pilots and ground staff.
F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine: Training of Ukrainian pilots has already started
“The training has already started,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told the TV station 24 channel. Engineers and technicians would also be trained accordingly. Where exactly the training takes place, Resnikov did not describe. The portal Yahoo News recently reported an internal US Air Force assessment that it It could take as little as four months to train Ukrainian pilots to fly American-made F-16 fighter jets. And thus significantly shorter than usual. That means they would be ready for use in the winter.
“No game changer for the counter-offensive, but predictability in the defense of Ukrainian airspace. Long overdue decision,” commented Gressel World the announcement of the F-16 deliveries: “It will allow Ukraine to protect its airspace in the long term.” The main concern here should be the protection of critical infrastructure. Because: The number of F-16 fighter jets delivered should not be that large, since Rutte said that the Netherlands itself only has 42 of these fighter jets. The number of aircraft that are handed over should be correspondingly manageable.
The same should apply to Denmark. Loud Global Firepower Index The small Scandinavian country with around six million inhabitants has only 33 F-16 fighter jets, of which only 25 are currently operational, which cannot be independently verified. Accordingly, care must be taken when using the aircraft. However, it is unclear whether the Americans will follow suit and send their own combat aircraft. This is the only way to build up an effective air force with which to attack Crimea and the base of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol.
F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine: Planes can fire Storm Shadow cruise missiles
Most recently, Ukraine showed with photos of Zelenskyj’s visit to an airbase that it can equip its few MiG-29 fighter jets with the highly effective Storm Shadow cruise missiles. This is also technically possible with the F-16. Now it remains to be seen how many F-16 fighter jets Ukraine will actually get. And when they are finally ready for use. (pm)
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