The first ten F-16 fighter jets arrived in Ukraine on 31st July, “a year after the reluctant Biden administration finally gave its more eager European allies the green light to send them,” the Economist writes. By the end of 2024, Ukraine should be flying 20 F-16s. The rest, promised by the F-16 coalition led by Denmark and the Netherlands, will arrive in batches during 2025.
Frustration about how long it has taken to get the aircraft to Ukraine is intense, says Ben Hodges, a former commander of American forces in Europe, in his interview for the Economist. One reason for the delay in providing sufficient numbers of F-16s to make an impact, he says, is a “pitiful” lack of training slots for Ukrainian pilots–a “policy decision by the administration.” Language difficulties have also contributed. Ukraine has excellent, battle-hardened pilots. But F-16s are both very different and more complex than the Soviet-era Mig-29s and Sukhoi-27s they are used to,
The F-16s are expected to lessen the impunity with which Russian Su-34s have been pummelling Ukraine’s front lines. The Russians have been launching more than a hundred crude but effective glide bombs every day without having to leave Russian airspace.
During the award ceremony celebrating Ukraine’s Air Force Day on 4 August 2024, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the F-16 had arrived in Ukraine. However, he didn’t specify the number of the aircraft received.
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