In an interview with “Tagesspiegel”, Scholz made it clear that he considers Kiev’s insistence even to some extent impolite. After all, after months of internal political discussions and negotiations with allies, Germany has conceded on the issue of Leopard 2 tanks, and in fact at the same moment Ukraine is demanding even more serious weapons.
However, the behavior of Ukrainian officials is also more than understandable. To repel Russian aggression and regain its occupied territories, Ukraine needs the most modern and powerful weapons, and the more the better. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has never hidden this, and fighter jets have been on the list of armaments since last summer, the delivery of which is very important to Kiev. What has changed is that at that time Ukraine was hoping to receive aircraft manufactured in the former Soviet Union from the NATO countries, but is currently pushing for the delivery of F-16 or similar fourth-generation fighters.
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Melnyk, urging Western allies to “destroy [piegādes] “coalition”, emphasized that “Eurofighter”, “Tornado”, “Rafale” or “Gripen” aircrafts would be just as useful for Ukraine as the F-16, the BBC reports. Zelensky’s adviser Mihailo Podolyak expressed the same, stressing that modern fighters are needed, to cover the armored vehicles from the air, which will begin to be delivered to Ukraine in the spring. It is also very understandable that Ukraine wants a decision on the delivery of military aircraft to be made as soon as possible, writes “Reuters”. The representative of the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuriy Ikhnat, explained that to learn to fly the F- The best Ukrainian pilots might be able to fly 16 planes in a couple of weeks. But it’s a completely different thing to fly them in combat conditions and effectively use all the armament of these aircraft. It takes at least half a year to learn it, and that means – if the decision is made very soon and the Ukrainian pilots are as possible quickly start training, it will be possible to use F-16 (or some other modern fighters) in battles against the aggressor no earlier than the end of summer. The newspaper “El Pais” wrote that Ukraine urged its allies to supply it with two squadrons (so – a total of 24 aircraft) of fighters, preferring the F-16. In a conversation with the Ukrainian media, Ikhnat emphasized that such specific details have not yet been discussed.
However, everything indicates that Ukraine would be happy to receive F-16 aircraft directly, among other things, because in this case the potential number of their suppliers is greater, since this type of fighters is in the arsenal of many so-called old NATO countries. According to CNN, Kyiv has special hopes for the Netherlands. Its air force has 24 such planes, but according to the country’s military doctrine, they will be replaced by the more advanced F-35 fighter jets next year. In 2021, the Netherlands already got rid of a dozen F-16 fighters, which are now used as training aircraft by the US Air Force. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Wopke Hoekstra, has already said that he would not see any problems if the remaining F-16s ended up in Ukraine’s arsenal.
However, the position of the US government will be decisive in this regard, “Politico.eu” emphasizes. The manufacturer of the F-16 is the American concern Lockheed Martin, and as with all weapons, other countries that have purchased it from the United States are not allowed to re-export the aircraft without Washington’s consent. John Feiner, the deputy head of the White House National Security Council, said in an interview with MSNBC last week that the issue of the delivery of fighter jets to the United States will be discussed “very carefully” with both Kyiv and its allies. However, “Politico.eu”, citing sources in the Pentagon, reports that US defense officials are inclined to support such deliveries. Whether the administration of President Joe Biden will listen to this opinion is another question, and it is unlikely that a decision will be made in the coming weeks. According to CNN, it seems to many that it is in vain for Ukraine to hope for the delivery of fighter jets, but it was similar in the past with both heavy artillery systems and tanks. As the war drags on, Western military aid to Ukraine is slowly, gradually but inevitably becoming more serious.
