Russia in recent months, it has been attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure on a large scale, but now it has changed its focus ahead of the NATO summit in Washington, writes Le Monde.
The Russians are already actively attacking Ukrainian air bases, with which they want to block the transfer of F-16 fighters to Ukraine and show that they will be able to destroy them when they enter service with the Ukrainian Air Force.
According to analysts, this pressure is largely related to the imminent official receipt from Ukraine of the first F-16 fighter jets, which Western countries have been promising to transfer to the country for many months. To date, there is no credible information that F-16 fighters are already in Ukraine – despite the reports of Russian Z-bloggers about destroyed ones.
In the space of several days, several large-scale Russian attacks have hit Ukrainian bases, according to reports confirmed by Russian and Western sources. Six Su-27 fighters were reported downed at the Mirgorod base. The Ukrainians did not deny these losses, although they tried to downplay them.
The strikes reflect Russia's desire to "show muscle to make Ukrainians and their supporters think twice at a crucial time" for the delivery of the F-16.
The transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not take long. But what takes a long time to implement is building the capacity to support and protect these fighters. Ukraine does not have a sufficient amount of air defense – something that Zelensky has been warning about for a long time.
The big problem for the Ukrainians is that they have no strategic depth: no part of their territory is secure.
The lack of air defense systems is compounded by another major problem for Kiev: the growing number of Russian attacks using cruise bombs. Difficult to detect, they are launched from aircraft beyond the range of Ukrainian defenses.
F-16s can help contain these attacks, but the planes that will be sent to the Ukrainians are not the most advanced. The effectiveness of the aircraft will also depend on the weapons systems delivered with them. Also, the number of promised planes seems insufficient.