F-16s will be in Ukraine in few weeks. They will strengthen air defence - WP
Western F-16 fighter jets are due to arrive in Ukraine in a few weeks. The first F-16s are expected to serve to strengthen Ukraine's air defence.
This is stated in the material of The Washington Post, Censor.NET informs.
According to Ukrainian and Western unnamed officials, the F-16s are unlikely to have an immediate impact on the battlefield. This is because there will be few planes arriving and too many Russian air defences capable of shooting them down.
Therefore, the first F-16s are likely to be used to strengthen Ukraine's air defence. In particular, the planes will shoot down missiles, drones and enemy aircraft, rather than strike at Russian ground forces and other military targets near the front.
The newspaper writes that initially, the planes are unlikely to fly too close to the front line. This means that it remains unclear whether the F-16s will be able to deter enemy aircraft taking off from Russian airspace.
Officials declined to say exactly how many aircraft Ukraine will receive this year, but it will be no more than one squadron, i.e., about 20 aircraft. In addition, only six pilots are expected to graduate this summer, as the programme has a limited number of places.
WP also writes that protecting the F-16s will be a difficult task, as all Ukrainian airfields are within range of Russian missiles.
An unnamed Ukrainian defence official said it was "impossible" for Kyiv to build covered concrete hangars to fully protect aircraft in wartime. Instead, Ukraine uses camouflage techniques and even parks model aircraft at airfields as decoys.
As a reminder, Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, recently said that Ukraine would use F-16s this year. She also noted that Ukrainian diplomats in the US are working to increase the number of pilot training sessions on F-16s and to train support personnel.
