The idea that the supply of F-16s to Ukraine would be some kind of magic bullet that will turn the war in Kiev’s favor has been debunked by none other than Gen. James Hecker, the commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and Africa. Yesterday, he told reporters during a breakfast meeting at the Pentagon that, while the F-16 would an improvement for the Ukrainian air force as it’s already compatible with all NATO-supplied air-to-surface missiles, anyone expecting them to start knocking out top Russian air defenses as soon as they get into battle will likely be disappointed. “It’s not going to be the silver bullet and all of a sudden they’re going to start taking down SA-21s because they have an F-16,” Hecker said, referring to Russia’s S-400 air defense system.
Russian forces are staying out of the range of the missiles Ukraine is now using, Hecker said, “and then any time we give them a new capability, we might hit one of [Russia’s] command posts and they go, ‘Oh, now they can go 20 miles as opposed to 15,’ and then we see them adapt and they move all their command posts back to 25 miles.” The Russians would likely respond the same way to Ukrainian F-16s. Further, “the problem is you won’t be able to chase them down in the F-16 over their land to get close enough because you’ll get shot by one of the Russian surface-to-air missiles,” Hecker added.
Hecker also revealed that the Ukrainian pilots selected for training in the F-16s are not pilots who will be transitioning from the old Soviet types, but rather “young pilots that barely have any hours at all, so they’re not currently fighting in the war.” Those fliers are getting language training in the U.K. and will go through more training on propeller-driven planes before heading to France to fly in the Alpha Jet training aircraft. “That all is going to take time, and that’s probably not going to happen before the end of the year,” Hecker remarked. “So that’s why it’s going to be at least until next year until you see F-16s in Ukraine.”
