Ending months of speculation, the lightweight multirole combat American fighter planes, the F-16s, are finally coming to Ukraine. The journey of landing these sophisticated fighters in Ukraine has been warped in political and technical dilemmas. For the naysayers, these fighters meant providing Ukraine with defensive and offensive air capabilities that might escalate the conflict to another level. For the more pragmatic, these fighters mark the logical culmination of the United States’ military aid to Ukraine, which has evolved and adapted to changing circumstances at the battlefront. But the bigger question remains – how to assess the real impact of these fighter planes in the larger Ukrainian counteroffensive for decisive changes on the ground?
At the very basic level, this is dependent on finite vectors. How many F-16s will arrive, and how fast can Ukrainian pilots, accustomed to flying Soviet-era planes until now, switch to sophisticated modern combat aircraft with the right training? What will be the ground staff logistics? Will F-16s alone suffice? And finally, how will Russia, with its undoubted air superiority, respond to all this? It is to review these logical points that the West has put together a formal grouping in lockstep with several of its partners.
What changed for Ukraine?
While Ukraine did not get any guarantees on the alliance’s future membership at NATO’s Vilnius summit in July, something did change for the country qualitatively. Its defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, signed a crucial Memorandum with at least 11 NATO countries.
This memorandum put in place a Western coalition, a small group of countries within NATO that will not only provide the F-16 fighter planes but also outline the terms and conditions of training the Ukrainian pilots for them. This 11-member coalition comprises Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Ukraine’s morale was further boosted on its national day on 24 August when the US, too, joined it. The coalition for providing F-16s to Ukraine is a subset of and complements the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) based in Ramstein, Germany, which convenes periodically to coordinate military aid to Ukraine.
As early as the January meeting, the UDCG members had recognised the need to send heavy offensive weaponry like German Leopard 2 and American Abram tanks to Ukraine. The following meeting in February discussed the value of modern fighter planes and brainstormed on the pathways to transfer the machines and the training in good time. This was crystallised at the NATO summit at Vilnius as the special coalition was launched. In August, after the US agreed to issue re-export licenses to other countries with F-16s, which allowed them to transfer their jets to Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark agreed to send 42 and 19 jets, respectively, to the country. Norway also followed in their footsteps, agreeing to send an unspecified number of jets.
The announcements are a breakthrough for Ukraine, but there is a need to put the details into perspective.
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Why the F-16s?
Manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the F-16 Fighting Falcon has evolved as a multi-role aircraft capable of performing air-to-air, air-to-ground and electronic warfare missions. It can carry a wide range of weapons and sensors and has performed combats in the Gulf War, Kosovo and Syria. It remains popular for its versatility and success in performing both offensive and defensive capabilities. As of 2023, about 25 countries have deployed them globally. Despite not being as advanced as the F-35s and the Gripens, they are best suited to the current efforts at Ukraine’s air defence upgrade.
The F-16 is not merely a political statement but a product of the evolution of the US’ military aid to Ukraine. The Joe Biden administration has sent most of the weapons it had said no to in the early days. From HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] to Abrams to Patriots and the F-16s, the country had refused to send high-end weapons to Kyiv despite repeated pleas.
Tracing change in American military aid
It will be useful to map the pattern of American military aid that has been evolving through the course of the war. For instance, early in the war, Javelin anti-tank missiles proved decisive in stopping Russia’s advances toward Kyiv. When Moscow readjusted its focus on the eastern and southeastern parts, military assistance from the US changed with supplies of Howitzers and HIMARS, which proved decisive in Ukraine’s successes in Kherson and Kharkiv.
As Russia decided to intensify attacks on Ukrainian logistics toward the end of 2022, the US followed it up by sending the Patriot missile air defence system. This year not only saw Biden visiting Kyiv in an astounding display of solidarity with Ukraine on the first anniversary of the war, it also saw the decisions on heavy offensive weaponry such as the Leopard and the Abram tanks. This change in President Biden’s policy results from pressure from both the Congress and the European allies. As recently as this month, the Congress and European allies have asked the Biden administration to send 190 range ATACMS and expedite the deliveries of Abram tanks. It would be reasonable to deduce that this pattern will keep evolving, and its texture will get more granular as the US, on its part, has made it clear to Europe that it will have to shoulder more military responsibility for the war as 2024 draws to an end and it gears up for elections.
The consensus expressed through successive UDCG meetings is that Russian land forces are depleted. This indicates that Moscow is likely to finally deploy more air capabilities. In fact, one of the unanswered questions in the Russia-Ukraine war has been the absence of Russia’s formidable air assets. Justin Bronk, who writes extensively on the air combat aspect of the Ukraine war, has explained why Moscow launched a military campaign with maximalist objectives and then declined to use the vast inventory of its fixed-wing combat aircraft, which is still intact and a challenge for Ukraine now.
Therefore, on the one hand, there is enough indication that Russia will now turn to deploying more unused air capabilities to control Ukrainian skies, which it has failed to do so far. But on the other hand, Russia had only limited success with countering Ukraine’s Soviet-style air defences. The Russian underperformance has convinced the West that with the F-16 upgrade, Ukrainians can bolster their defences more effectively and counter Russian plans to control their skies.
But the long list of challenges might impede Ukraine’s quick manoeuvring.
How fast Ukraine can be trained for a completely different type of air machine remains to be seen. The Russian combat aviation complex, still unused, has a quantitative and technological advantage over the Ukrainian side despite the latter destroying almost 75 per cent of air attacks from Moscow. It is here that the F-16s can effectively destroy air threats and, armed with air-to-air missiles, can provide effective countermeasures against guided aerial bombs, which the Russian side has been using increasingly lately. The fighters will also help Ukrainian positions over the Black Sea.
However, the biggest dampener is the schedule of deliveries. The first batch of these fighters will reach Ukraine only by the end of 2023 and will be ready for deployment next year and onwards. In such a scenario, any likely impact on the current state of the counteroffensive remains farfetched. It also re-iterates the sinking in of a painfully protracted war in East Europe with disturbing global ramifications.
On the other hand, the dramatic end of former Russian businessman and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has once again opened a debate on Moscow’s inner intrigues. It has given a further twist in the saga of the Russia-Ukraine war. One can only speculate if these twists and turns might have a psychological impact on the current Ukrainian counteroffensive, but the real challenge will be to produce a tangible impact on the battlefront- which is where the endeavours shall stay focussed.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)