- President Zelenskiy announces use of U.S.-made fighter planes
- Ukraine has long waited for the higher-capability jets
- Kyiv hopes they will change war, Russia vows to shoot them down
Aug 4 (Reuters) - Ukrainian pilots have started flying F-16s for operations within the nation, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, confirming the long-awaited arrival of the U.S.-made fighter jets more than 29 months since Russia’s invasion.
This is very good but not war-changing. Ukraine was seriously low on combat jets full stop. F-16 can pretty much do the same job as the Migs and SUs.
As far as dog fighting flankers, without AWACS and fuel tanker support, the capabilities of the F-16 are severely diminished. She’s got a small radar, and short range. And NATO isn’t going to let the Ukrainians have access to the top shelf armaments bc they don’t want Russia, Iran, and China reverse engineering battle captured tech.
You’re correct. Though the AWACS and AMRAAMs for the fighters are coming
https://theaviationist.com/2024/05/29/ukraine-to-get-swedish-awacs/
But there is one nice improvement, at least: F-16s are able to use all missile modes for NATO munitions instead of the couple available through converted Soviet era fighters. Some important features like BVR and multi-target engagement likely don’t work, or are severely limited, with Ukraine’s MiGs.