"Too few to defeat the Russian Air Force, but a highly symbolic beginning. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has been asking for F-16 fighters.
Ukraine received its first ten Western F-16 fighter jets on the last day of July, a year after the Biden administration finally gave its more active European allies the green light to send them, reports The Economist.
The publication notes that Ukraine is to receive a total of 79 F-16 aircraft from its allies. In particular, 20 of them should arrive in Ukraine by the end of 2024. All the rest will be delivered to Ukraine in batches in 2025, the journalists note.
The journalists also quoted Ben Hodges, former commander of US forces in Europe. He is frustrated with how long it has taken to deliver the planes to Ukraine. According to him, one of the reasons for the delay in providing enough F-16s is the "deplorable shortage of places to train Ukrainian pilots".
Among other reasons, journalists point to the language barrier, as well as the construction of an infrastructure to receive Western fighters. In particular, the journalists explain that the F-16s require different maintenance than their Soviet counterparts.
"The approaching planes are a priority target for the Russians," said Nico Lange, former chief of staff at the German defense ministry. That's why they are located with great secrecy, in scattered bases with underground or protected shelters, along with decoys. But such dispersion complicates logistics: more people and more spare parts are needed.