NATO members to start deliveries of F-16 jets to Ukraine, but will there be enough pilots? | DW News

Now Ke's position on the battlefield has been practically static for months. In the coming weeks, Ukraine's NATO partners

will

begin delivering the F-16 fighter

jets

that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zalinski has been requesting since the Russian invasion. F-16s are among the most sophisticated weapons. They are being supplied to Ukraine, but they are unlikely to be an immediate game-changer - they are sleek, supersonic and loud. The F-16 Fighting Falcons are by no means the most advanced fighter aircraft; In fact, the first were delivered in 1976 and now cost more than 60 million euros each. they are among the most versatile air weapons available to any military power useful for Ukraine defensively and offensively we have agreed on new more ambitious defense plans allies are delivering more Forces high redness uh investing in high-level capabilities an obstacle for the F-16 is which require extensive training that some Ukrainian

pilots

have been receiving at FastTrack for many months here in France and elsewhere are already mentally prepared they are all between 21 and 23 years old but are already warriors at heart in In the coming months, Ukraine could have about a dozen

pilots

ready to fly F-16s, probably around 20 total by the end of the year, meaning the Ukrainian Air Force

will

likely have more F-16s than pilots qualified to fly them, meanwhile, Russia now knows very well that the f-16. -16 are coming Russia is attacking all possible airfields F16 bases every day, including attempts to damage runways and infrastructure.

The president of Russia, while in North Korea, pointed out that F-16 aircraft can attack from Ukraine towards Russian territory, which blatantly violates the international responsibilities that the West The countries that took analysts see the F-16 with their modern radar systems, munitions and jamming capabilities as a major upgrade to Ukraine's arsenal. They will support ground troops and be able to intercept Russian attacks in a manner far superior to Ukraine's Soviet-era Mig 29s. will also require spare parts and maintenance and diverted defense capabilities while on the ground, whether they will be a game-changer against Russia, some experts may have indicated that by putting

enough

game-changers into the mix, Ukraine will eventually be able to change the game and I am now joined by Sine P from the Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg.

He works there as a researcher in the chair of political science and strategic theory. Thank you very much for his time today. Can you tell us how useful these f are? -16s uh will be for the Ukrainian army and what kind of missions will they be used for. Hello and thank you for inviting me. The F-16 uh will basically fill all the roles that you mentioned just earlier in the video. Basically, air to air and air to ground and also, you know, basically, the jamming capabilities of the anti-missile batteries, the problem, however, is that they are not, you know, in the quantity that might be necessary for it and the F16 like This is just one tool in that set of tools that is given to Ukraine.

Well, so you mentioned that there aren't

enough

of them. I mean, I think Ukraine's partners have agreed to supply a little more than 80 um F16. You're saying that's not enough. What about a deployment rate, I mean, will they deploy fast enough to make any kind of difference? Well, first of all, 80 sounds like a lot, but we have to differentiate between the different versions of the F-16s that are supplied in that sense, so, The Danish F-16s that will be applied are different in many ways from the previous versions which for example a Dutchman wants to supply so there is a bit of overlap and yes you can use the spare parts but it is not necessarily the same aircraft as such especially when it comes to avionics the second problem will be that , as you mentioned before, there are not enough pilots, so there will be enough planes to deal with the threat as such, but the problem will be the standard. training of the pilots who will fly the plane and also, you know, the number of pilots, obviously, the advantage could be that the pilots who are actually flying the F16s could get more training time and also more combat time so that in In reality they are more valuable and would probably have more planes per person, however if that is really a change I highly doubt it will be okay, so just clarifying that the training does not go fast enough, it is like that and that is obviously a problem, So the problem is due to covid-19.

The training cycle within us for NATO partners is already behind schedule, so there is not enough training capacity at the moment for Ukrainian pilots to gain combat-ready status, even alongside the French. approach or the British. There's just not enough training capacity right now, so for the next 6 to 12 months, training will be very limited, so I think we're talking about 20 to 30 pilots who could actually fly these planes. Russia says it just destroyed some of Ukraine's fighter

jets

. How vulnerable will these F-16s be to attacks similar to what Ukraine is already using, so most of the planes are being destroyed on the ground or, you know, in close operations? near the front line, the problem is that the air war in Ukraine shows that if you are in contested airspace, meaning you have missile batteries, you know, controlling the skies, you limit the usability of the Anyway, it has a main role, therefore the f-16s um will have to be dispersed anyway throughout Ukraine, so even if a fuel is destroyed, that doesn't necessarily change the game.

The bigger picture is how these F-16s are fitting into operational planning and how they can support the terrain. and that's where the key is in the F-16 deal sine CER from Helmut Schmid University in Hamburg sine thank you very much for that really interesting analysis thank you for your time thank you let's talk to Christopher Morris here, he is a member of the peace conflict and security research group at the University of Portsmouth in England, thank you for being with us, tell us how useful do you think these F-16s will be for the Ukrainian military, what kind of missions will they be used for and will they be absolutely useful, unfortunately no so much.

So one of the things that they will be absolutely essential for is effectively engaging the air defense system that Ukraine has, so they will be very capable in that role and they will also be good at pushing back. some of the Russian aircraft now not, we're going to see some very interesting missions from these F-16s, things like, you know, long-range strikes and support troops on the front lines, which they probably won't be used for. air to combat, probably won't be used, you know, things like close ground support in the vicinity of the front line, but yes, they will be very useful.

The radars they are equipped with will be very useful. It's useful in pushing back those Russian planes and depending on what weapons systems they're equipped with, they could make a tangible change to the battle that's unfolding, but in terms of fundamentally changing the balance of the conflict, that's unfortunately unlikely. Ukraine's partners have so far agreed to supply just over 80 F-16s and can be deployed quickly enough to make a real difference. Now what we're talking about here is effectively providing a country that has previously operated aging Soviet aircraft, you know? relatively modern, we're talking about 90 z uh western NATO equipment now, typically this would be a generational project that would require over a decade of debt for pilots and ground crews to build up the added experience and necessary infrastructure to operate these aircraft effectively.

What is being achieved. in Ukraine it's incredible, but it's being done very quickly, so in terms of the ability of these, you know, about 80 aircraft to really change the balance of the conflict, it's a very good

start

, but you know integrating them with the ground forces it's going to be immensely difficult and you know, in terms of they have an immediate game-changing effect. I would hesitate to predict that Russia has now been attacking Ukrainian airfields. Just today he says he has destroyed some of Ukraine's fighter planes. How vulnerable, Christopher. Will the F-16s attack well now?

This is one of the obvious functions that Russia is going to try to adopt. They are going to try to eliminate the land infrastructure. You know it's a much easier target unlike the F-16s themselves. is not moving now, fortunately Ukraine has the benefits of limited air defense and this would be an immensely expensive type of process for Russia to seriously engage with. Yes, for one thing, they can absolutely attack these bases with long range terrain. attack weapons systems, uh, but you know if they really want to take them out they're going to have to engage in some kind of attack on Ukraine and you know they don't want to risk their Air Force either, so yeah, well, that's it. a tactic that we can predict Russia is going to employ, you know, in terms of carrying it out, you know it's going to be difficult for them as well, now Ukraine says it's considering stationing some of the new F-16s in other Eastern European countries. . like Poland, how could Russia respond to that Christopher?

Well, now in terms of what's going to be stationed in Poland, it's going to be necessary now in terms of setting up serious maintenance, sort of Depo style maintenance in Ukraine, that's difficult again. us to operate all Soviet aircraft, its runways are not ideal and its ground infrastructure is not everything we could wish for. Poland already operates F-16s and would be an ideal location for serious maintenance and training now in terms of how Russia might react they certainly aren't going to like it, you know Poland is already beefing up its air defense and you know it's preparing for Russia, I guess shenanigans and raids, of course, you have to balance that with the fact as well. that Russia was already doing everything that it really dares to do in terms of interfering with NATO

members

, so you know there is cause for concern, but I wouldn't be too worried, Christopher, thank you very much for talking to us, that It was Christopher.

Morris from the University of Portsmouth thank you very much.