Why Does Ukraine’s Push for Gripen and Eurofighter Jets Make No Sense?
© East News / AP/FOTOLINK
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In late August, the Ukrainian air force confirmed that a US-made F-16 jet, which was transferred to Ukraine by its Western partners, crashed just weeks after the first batch of such aircraft was delivered to Kiev.
Ukraine possessing a fleet of various Western warplanes will have a negative impact on the efficiency of each and every such aircraft, Russian military analyst Ilya Kramnik tells Sputnik, commenting on reports that the Kiev regime is in talks with allies "to acquire Swedish Gripen and European Eurofighter jets."
Problems сould first and foremost arise due to the complexity of simultaneously servicing different types of aircraft at the same time, Kramnik, who is also a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, adds.
In a separate interview with Sputnik, veteran Russian military analyst Viktor Litovkin suggests that Ukraine wants to get the Gripens and the Eurofighters in order "to draw Western countries into military action on its territory” and “to show Western countries' solidarity with Ukraine, which is ‘courageously’ fighting" Russia.
"But one should understand that no one will give Kiev these planes. And even if they give them, there will be no one in Ukraine to fly them because there are no trained pilots. The most important thing, though, is that there is a big question mark on who will maintain these warplanes," Litovkin stresses.
When asked which Russian warplanes could counter the Gripens and the Eurofighters, he refers to the Su-30 and the Su-35, which are "better than any foreign aircraft in many parameters."
“Firstly, all these [foreign] aircraft we are talking about are single-engine, and they are fitted with less weapons than our aircraft. Secondly, the Su-30s and the Su-35s have a thrust-vectoring module to perform aerobatics in the sky, which helps these two warplanes evade enemy missiles. The planes are also better than the Gripens and the Eurofighters in terms of missile- and radar-related characteristics,” Litovkin concludes.
