Retired Lt. Gen. Ihor Romanenko, former Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ General Staff said during an interview on Ukrainian Radio that currently Ukraine’s F-16 fighter aircraft are limited to air defense tasks but require modern long-range weapons if they are to fully exploit their potential against Russian ground and air forces.
The capability of the F-16 as an air defense interceptor was amply displayed on the night of Nov. 29, 2024, when they reportedly took down seven Russian cruise missiles targeted against civilian infrastructure
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the performance of the F-16s saying they had transformed and strengthened Ukraine's air defense strategy.
However, several commentators agree with Romanenko that, while excelling in that role, the aircrafts’ state-of-the-art avionics could allow them to bring about a sea change in Ukraine’s defensive and offensive capabilities but they lack the weapons necessary to do so.
In August 2023, President Joe Biden authorized the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine from NATO allies, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium. Between them they have pledged more than 80 of the aircraft, with Ukrainian pilots and maintenance crews receiving the training necessary to operate the multirole fighters – although there is concern that not enough are being trained to fully utilize that size of fleet.
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Romanenko believes Ukrainian pilots are more than capable of engaging Russian aircraft using the AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles at ranges up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) and AIM-9 Sidewinders for close combat engagements out to 35.4 kilometers (22 miles) and ground attack weapons such as the US AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) which can deliver its 450-kilogram (1,000-pound) warhead out to 370 kilometers (230 miles).
He added, “This is extremely important for us. We need not only the aircraft but also more powerful aviation weaponry.”
He also raised the thorny issue of F-16 pilot training as many have done before questioning why experienced Ukrainian pilots were not being prioritized for training. According to Romanenko: “Early on, we requested permission to work with veteran F-16 pilots, but no response was given. Meanwhile, our 12 experienced pilots were placed in a queue, while other countries were training thousands annually.”
This is an issue that Kyiv Post has previously addressed. After the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan claimed the delays in training Ukrainian pilots was because Kyiv was not offering sufficient candidates Zelensky disputed this saying the US had not offered the training places needed to fully utilize the dozen or so Ukraine now had in service.
In a separate interview with the military issues publication “Militarnyi,” the head of the “Come Back Alive” Foundation, Taras Chmut a military expert in his own right, also extolled the success of the F-16s against cruise missiles and kamikaze drones. He also bemoaned the lack of weaponry capable of effectively dealing with Russian aircraft such as the Su-34 medium-range strike aircraft, which are deploying aerial guided bombs from stand-off positions behind the front lines against both Ukrainian battlefield positions and nearby cities, such as Kharkiv, with virtual impunity.
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