According to the latest deal hammered out between the NATO powers and Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark will together supply Kiev with 61 F-16 Falcon fighter jets of the older A/B variants - with updated equipment - in exchange for being permitted to buy newer versions of the jet from the United States.
Kiev has long sought Falcons, which were introduced as an interceptor in the 1970s to counter Soviet fighters and bombers, as a year and a half of combat has severely attrited its air forces. While Western powers that are former Soviet allies have until this point supplied Ukraine with Soviet-made aircraft from their own inventories, shipping Western-made fighters presents a new challenge since both Ukrainian pilots and Ukrainian technology will have to be adapted to use them.
Boris Rozhin, a military expert with the Center for Military-Political Journalism, an independent Russian military affairs think tank, said that the transfer of fighters would likely be slow and it would present few problems for Russian forces.
“It was promised that Denmark and Holland should receive 61 F-16 fighters according to their plans within three years. That is, some quantity will be delivered possibly before the end of the year, some parts will arrive in 2024-25 and even possibly in 2026. This is a rather lengthy process, at each stage of which geopolitical and technical problems may arise. Maybe the conflict will come to naught by then. Various things can happen. But there is no particular doubt that these aircraft will be provided in principle, the process is underway, approved by the United States,” he told Sputnik.
“It has already passed into the stage of practical implementation, so the planes will take part in the fighting. It depends on the quantity of the first delivery. In addition, how many aircraft will be delivered as part of the first batch is also unclear, as is the final number of aircraft that will be provided to Ukrainian troops,” Rozhin said.
“If the planes are nevertheless handed over, the pilots have time to master these machines and learn how to handle them correctly and efficiently, then they will be used to launch missiles. That is, they will also seek to carry out missile strikes against our facilities, because they fly at low altitudes,” Rozhin said.
“In response, we can attack the airfields where they are based and warehouses with missiles that are transmitted from the West. Since Russian intelligence has certain capabilities to track such cargoes, it is possible to detect their location and eliminate them even before the start of their operation,” Rozhin continued. “We will probably also see strikes on military targets, personnel accommodation facilities and guarding the parking lot or repairing such vehicles. They will need to hide them well to avoid such blows.”
He noted that these aircraft are heavily used, having been the mainstay of Danish and Dutch air forces for years, meaning the transfer process will have to include repair work in addition to training and adapting them to fire Ukrainian missiles.
“The machines themselves are supposed to be used for launching various types of NATO missiles, which are now being used through modifications on old Soviet aircraft. It is clear that they will be able to launch air-to-ground, air-to-air missiles, and try to somehow counteract Russian aircraft, which dominate the sky on the front line and pose a particular threat. That is, they will try to somehow challenge Russian air superiority and they will be blocked on the territory of Ukraine. In this case, the expansion of runways and the strengthening of these runways are already underway, because they have more stringent operational requirements than, say, in Russia, the Soviet-made MiG-29, Su-27. Ammunition, of course, will be supplied from the West.”
He added that “it cannot be ruled out that some of the pilots will be NATO pilots who will be used in Ukraine under the guise of mercenaries or volunteers.”
Earl Rasmussen, an international consultant and a retired lieutenant colonel with over 20 years in the US Army, told Sputnik that much remained up in the air, so to speak, about how the agreement will actually be implemented.
“The Netherlands haven't even decided how many planes they're going to provide because they've got only a total of 42 in their entire air force. They've already got some internal training commitments, some internal defense commitments and some commitments apparently with Romania as well. So they've got to take that out and we'll see how many are left,” Rasmussen explained.
“And I think they also mentioned - which I think this is applicable to not just the Netherlands, but also Denmark and the United States - is that there are conditions that need to be met. In other words, the pilots need to be trained, the maintenance crews need to be trained in the maintenance, the logistics, supply capability need to be in place or they need to have some type of negotiation on how they are going to do that,” Rasmussen said.
He noted that even for experienced pilots, “they're probably talking a minimum of six months” before they will be able to operate the F-16, but that it could take up to two years of training before they can “optimally fly the plane in formations that you want in an appropriate way” for combat missions.
“So it's not just buying the planes, getting on planes, and ‘voila, we have air power now.’ I don't see anything happening till - they may have commitments with the planes, but I don't see anything happening till next year at the earliest,” he told Sputnik.
“Plus, there are rumors that some of the planes may need maintenance. And that's probably true. Sometimes there's a certain percentage - in some countries of up to 30-40% - that are inoperable and that are in maintenance at the time,” he explained. “They may need to be upgraded before they go, they may then be brought back into an operational condition before they go. So will the planes be there next month? Absolutely not. If they are, they'll be sitting on a tarmac getting ready to get hit because they'll have no one to fly it.”
“I understand they got a couple of pilots, a few pilots that have already been trained. Realistically, I don't think we're going to see, even though I think Denmark said they can transfer six right away. I don't really see those once conditions are met. I don't see any of those conditions even slightly being met for at least six months. So we're looking at next year before the plane even starts to go in.”