Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Sunday, August 4, that he had finally received his very first F-16 fighters, the long-awaited American-made warplanes. This announcement comes as the situation remains tense on the front, with Ukraine having announced shortly before the evacuation of children and their parents from several localities in the Donetsk region (east), close to areas where Russia has claimed new advances in recent days.
Since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, kyiv has been pleading for F-16s in hopes of ending Russian dominance in the air and better protecting its cities and troops from relentless bombing. “We have had hundreds of meetings and negotiations” with allies to obtain the planes and bolster the country’s air defenses, and “we have often heard the words ‘it’s impossible’ in response,” Zelensky said at a ceremony at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. “Now this is reality, reality in our skies. F-16s are in Ukraine,” he said. “I am proud of our guys who […] have already started using them for our country.”
The American-made planes, touted for their precision, speed and range, are considered the crown jewel in a sprawling list of military hardware Ukraine has requested from its backers in an attempt to repel Russian advances on its soil. The Ukrainian president did not disclose the number of planes Kiev had received, saying only that it was “insufficient,” nor the number of Ukrainian pilots trained in the West to fly and maintain the planes. “The positive thing is that we are expecting additional F-16s” and that “many of our guys are being trained,” he said.
AFP journalists saw at least two F-16s flying over the site during the ceremony. Behind Volodymyr Zelensky, two other gray aircraft resembling F-16s were on the ground, partially covered in camouflage nets and their tails emblazoned with the national coat of arms, the trident. In mid-May, the head of state had said in an interview with AFP that he needed 120 to 130 of these aircraft to achieve parity with the Russian air force. However, Ukraine’s partners have promised to send fewer than 100 F-16s to date, with delivery likely to be spread over several years, after extensive training of the pilots who will use them.
Moscow downplays
Neither the date of delivery nor the country that supplied this first batch have been revealed. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on July 10 the start of the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine, “from Denmark and the Netherlands.” While rumors of the imminent delivery of the F-16s had been circulating for several days, Moscow warned last week that these planes would be “shot down” in Ukraine, assuring that they would not have “a significant impact” on the front.
A series of recent Russian strikes on Ukrainian air bases has raised questions about kyiv’s ability to protect the multimillion-dollar planes. In early July, Russia claimed to have destroyed five military aircraft in an attack on an air base in central Ukraine. Following the bombing, Ukrainian military correspondents criticized the air force’s top brass, saying the planes had been parked in the open without adequate protection.
Ukraine’s air force relies on an aging fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29s and Sukhoi jets, worn out by more than two years of demanding combat missions. France announced in June that it would supply Kiev with French Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets this year, without specifying their number.
Following Moscow’s claim of territorial advances in the east in recent days, the governor of Donetsk announced on Sunday that he would have to evacuate a total of “744 children with their parents from four communities to safer regions of Ukraine”. The governor has called on civilians to leave the region in recent weeks due to an increase in Russian bombing.