NATO allies are scrambling to arrange the training and transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to U.S. and European officials, raising the prospect that the U.S.-made fighter jets could enter the war sooner than some would think.
“I hope [during] autumn, I’m quite hopeful,” a senior European official told the Washington Examiner. “Some European states … have already reserved [an] impressive amount of F-16s for Ukrainians.”
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That timeline is admittedly optimistic relative to general expectations, particularly in the wake of recent reports that President Joe Biden has not given a final authorization for a pilot training initiative, despite his general approval of the plan. The initiative, which has been propelled by an 11-member bloc of NATO allies, is expected to begin next month, and Biden’s team was at pains Friday to assure a transatlantic audience that they are backing the plan with all deliberate haste.
“I cannot give you a precise date, but I can tell you this as a matter of weeks. It is not a matter of months. and that it’s not because we’re just waiting until August to start arbitrarily,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told the Aspen Security Forum late Friday afternoon. “It’s because every day people are getting up at the Pentagon … reporting all the way up to the secretary of defense and to me on the progress of putting in place what is necessary to do a very complex task.”
Yet Sullivan also argued that the primary value of the jets will bear out over “the long-term defense and deterrent capability of Ukraine.” He downplayed their potential efficacy in the context of the immediate struggle, arguing that Ukrainian forces would face some of the same constraints that have prevented Russia from establishing control over Ukrainian airspace throughout the war.
“Air defense is such a significant element to both sides’ capabilities that Ukraine can hold Russian fourth and fifth generation fighters at risk, and Russia could hold Ukrainian fourth and fifth-generation fighters at risk,” Sullivan said. “So the view of our military commanders is that the notion that F-16s would play a decisive role in this counteroffensive, given that fundamental reality which has played out in the battlefield over the course of the past year, they have a different view than what you have heard from some Ukrainian voices.”
Those voices on Friday included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who used his virtual appearance to renew a call for the fighter jets, as well as other weapons.
“We need to [say] that Russia is clearly dominating the skies now,” Zelensky said, prior to Sullivan’s address. “We are very thankful to the world for already going through with the matter of training our pilots. This is important. But besides them being trained, it would be nice to have some confidence and surety today that we are going to have these plates in the necessary quantity.”
Ukrainian defense officials have said that they need “three or four squadrons” of F-16s to thwart Russian attacks “in a certain area, in a certain zone of defense” — provided they come equipped with adequate weapons.
“If only we had a platform that could use, for example, American AIM-120 air-to-air missiles – they have a range of about 180 kilometers – we would simply not allow them to approach the borders at a distance [close enough for] launching these missiles,” Brigadier Gen. Serhii Holubtsov, chief of aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, said in May.
The exact number of F-16s allotted for Ukrainian acquisition remains uncertain, but some reports suggest that Denmark, Norway, and The Netherlands could combine to provide about 50 of the planes.
“They are committing to get the aircraft there probably early next year — so, early ’24 — and that will help significantly, that will give them a real capability for air superiority,” said former Ambassador Kurt Volker, the State Department’s point man for the Ukraine conflict prior to Donald Trump’s first impeachment scandal. “I think we’re talking, probably, 40.”
The prospect of their arrival, whenever it may come, has spurred at least some observers to hope that the Ukrainian pilots could loosen Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian grain exports.
“When Ukraine will have F-16s, then they are able to control their part of the Black Sea, and then they will force by themselves a corridor,” the first senior European official told the Washington Examiner.
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Whether Sullivan shares that assessment or not, he maintained that Western officials are making the necessary arrangements.
“That work is ongoing as we speak today, Friday,” Sullivan said. “And it will continue until we can actually have the first Ukrainian in a cockpit of an F-16 at a base in Europe, which is currently being prepared actively rapidly with our with our with our NATO allies.”
