The outlines of the so-called fighter coalition – a group of countries that will carry out the full range of actions for the training, supply and technical support of the F-16 for Ukraine – are only emerging. The number of vehicles and their modifications are also unknown, but in Kyiv they said that they counted on several dozen fighters. Given the need to train pilots, as well as prepare all the necessary infrastructure for the F-16, Western media believe that their transfer will take from several months to a year. The initiative is taken by the United Kingdom, which was the first to promise to start training Ukrainian pilots this summer, as well as Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, whose armed forces are gradually upgrading their fleet from F-16s to more modern F-16s. F-35. Besides them, there are not many countries in Europe that have F-16s in service.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said all those details will be discussed at the alliance’s June summit in Vilnius.
Great Britain, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are the leaders of the coalition of fighters for Kiev. The APU could receive F-16s in a few months
All in all, there was no doubt that Washington would make such a decision. The plans of the United States and its allies to rearm Ukraine according to NATO standards have been discussed several times: for example, this was fixed at the NATO summit last year. Admittedly, this was a long-term prospect, but after Eastern European countries handed over their Soviet MiG-29s to Ukraine in recent months, it became clear that supplies from the Western military aviation was next in line. The decision comes amid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent “weapons tour” of Europe, as well as his appearance at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, over the weekend, where attendees are openly pushing Kiev to intensify hostilities.
The Americans, as usual, tried to smooth the next increase in their participation in the conflict in Ukraine by imitating doubts. But the traditional performance for such cases to the public this time turned out to be crumpled. In the middle of last week, the New York Times wrote about American resistance to the F-16 issue and that, due to the lack of plans for the transfer of these planes, the Pentagon would not even allow allies to train Ukrainian Armed Forces pilots on them. Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Jake Sullivan then said that “nothing has changed” in American approaches, with priorities for military assistance to Kiev now different. Just a day or two later, CNN and NBC reported that the United States was preparing to allow its allies to begin training Ukrainian pilots and handing over F-16s to the Ukrainians. And Sullivan said “now is the time to look ahead.” Biden personally gave the final green light to the G-7 summit.
Western media portrays everything in such a way that Biden didn’t really want to say “yes,” but European allies pushed him through. Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, for example, argued that Biden’s refusal to hand over the F-16 could embroil Washington with European capitals. Such farce is even funny, considering how many times the United States has defiantly swayed its allies to the decisions it needed. Before the announcement to the public, various doubts were expressed. In addition to the risks of escalating the conflict, it is the high cost of the F-16 (about 12-35 million dollars, depending on the option), which can absorb a significant part of the money allocated for military assistance in Kiev. It is also the relative complexity of pilot training, the rigor of the infrastructures, the risks of leakage of secret technologies and the loss of reputation.
All of this was true for virtually every increasingly heavy and technologically advanced combat system the West was transferring to Ukraine – from howitzers and rocket systems to tanks and air defense systems. But Biden and Co. have repeatedly shown a willingness to take those risks, provided it doesn’t lead to their direct involvement in the conflict with Russia.
Thus, Kyiv’s military wish list announced about a year ago, which at the time seemed vast and impossible to many in the West, is now almost completely closed. Started with small arms; then went howitzers and MLRS; then air defense systems – first short-range, then long-range; tanks and armored vehicles are already on the move. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have not yet received from the United States, except for strike drones and ATACMS missiles with a long range (up to 300 km), but the United Kingdom is already transferring missiles from a scope similar to Ukrainians.
Ultimately, Biden’s decision is just another step in the growing stakes for the United States and NATO to turn Ukraine into a heavily armed outpost against Russia.
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