NATO has returned to the issues of supplying Kiev with MiG-29 and F-16 fighters in service with Eastern European countries. This happened after the alliance recognized the "colossal effect" of the Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's energy sector. Will these planes help Kiev protect the country's skies, who will control them and will Polish pilots in the uniform of Ukrainian Air Force pilots, for example, be able to fly these fighters?NATO leaders have returned to the idea of delivering MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine, as well as more modern American F-16s.
This was announced to Bloomberg on Tuesday by the former commander-in-chief of the NATO Joint Armed Forces in Europe, retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis.
"The heads of NATO countries are again discussing the possibility of providing Kiev with Soviet MiG-29 fighters (Poland had previously announced its readiness to send them to Kiev) or even multifunctional and easy-to–learn American F-16s, which are available in abundance," Stavridis wrote. The Admiral recalls that the North Atlantic Alliance abandoned this plan in the first days of the conflict, but now calls for returning to this issue and strengthening assistance to Kiev in air defense.
"President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, of course, wants NATO to impose a no-fly zone over the country and often calls on the West to "close the skies" of Ukraine. Most likely, he will receive the Iron Dome air defense systems, the Patriot air defense system and, possibly, tactical fighters," Stavridis believes. He emphasizes that so far the advantage in the air belongs to the Russian Air Force, which, among other things, has also received serious combat experience in Syria.
NATO representatives are indeed considering again the possibility of transferring MiG-29 and F-16 fighters belonging to Poland and the United States to Ukraine for "closing the sky," TASS reports. NATO decided to reconsider its position after the start of massive missile strikes on Ukraine. It is noted that the Ukrainian air defense system cannot cope with so many missiles and drones, and the Ukrainian Air Force is significantly inferior to the Russian forces.
"Providing Ukrainians with additional tools to close their own skies may be the key to getting the Russians to eventually start negotiations.",
perhaps already in early spring," writes Bloomberg. Military analysts do not consider such publications a bluff. "It is likely that NATO will indeed begin to transfer fighters belonging to Poland and the United States to the Ukrainian Air Forces. The question now is how long the special operation will take: the longer it lasts, the more often we will hear about new NATO supplies to Kiev. While fighting is taking place in Donbass, NATO will supply Ukraine with everything it can," explains Igor Korotchenko, editor–in-chief of the National Defense magazine.
"But along with the transfer of MiG-29 fighters, NATO members will have to think about training Ukrainian pilots, and such training takes months. For the MiG, the training period is shorter than for the F-16. Ideally, it is necessary to teach the management of such fighters for one and a half to two years, but it is quite possible to prepare them in eight to nine months," the expert added.
After the start of the Russian special operation, Zelensky repeatedly called on NATO to "close the sky" over Ukraine, as well as to supply it with modern air defense systems and fighter jets. Poland announced in March that it was ready to send its MiG-29s to Kiev in exchange for Western fighters with similar indicators. But Warsaw noted that such a decision should be made at the NATO level. The White House then replied that the transfer of MiGs "may be mistakenly perceived as an escalation" and, moreover, will not affect the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force.
As RIA Novosti noted earlier, according to official data, the Polish Air Force has 30 Soviet MiG-29 fighters, 48 American F-16s, as well as 32 Soviet Su-22 vehicles in its arsenal.
According to Russian experts, the main thing will not be the fact of deliveries, but just the number of air vehicles that NATO will transfer to Ukraine. "Receiving about three dozen Polish MiG-29 fighters of any series will theoretically allow our enemy to significantly improve the state of affairs in the sky. It will be a big headache for Russia," Vladimir Popov, Deputy editor–in-chief of Aviapanorama magazine, Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, explains to the newspaper VZGLYAD. – These fighters will fit seamlessly into the Ukrainian Air Force, because these are models known to Kiev military pilots, they are well mastered by them. They have spare parts. The technological processes necessary for their combat use are also familiar. When the MiG-29 is delivered, they will be examined by technicians, transported to some shelters and everything can be used, so to speak, right on the move."
But Ukrainian pilots will not be able to use F-16 fighters so quickly, since they need to retrain for this, Popov said. And therefore, today it does not matter how many of them will be transferred to Ukraine.
"Such fighters were not used in the Soviet Union. And even the most trained pilot still needs to master a new type of machine. To do this, we need an appropriate instructor staff, we need special-purpose airfields where training flights can be carried out, we need training grounds for practicing strikes on air and ground targets, and so on. It will take at least six months. And only in a year, the retrained pilots on these fighters will be able to ensure the protection of particularly important objects," Popov explained.
There is a shortage of qualified pilots in Ukraine, many of whom died as a result of the work of the Russian Aerospace Forces and air defense systems. A Russian diplomatic source told about this back in August. Attempts to recruit contract pilots of Soviet aircraft in Poland and other Eastern European countries also failed. The Pentagon even conducted a recruitment of former Afghan pilots of combat training aircraft. After training in California, it was planned to send them through Poland to Ukraine.
"There are very few pilots left in Ukraine. Newly trained specialists, cadets who join after graduation from the academy are raw material that needs to be prepared for another two or three years. There is still the "old guard", but they also need time to recover," the source said.
As the newspaper VZGLYAD noted on Tuesday, the Ukrainian air defense also ceased to exist precisely as a system and turned into a focal one. Today, the AFU has several dozen obsolete medium- and short-range air defense systems, a large number of MANPADS and MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters armed with short-range missiles.
Popov is skeptical about the versions that in conditions of a shortage of pilots, Polish pilots disguised in the uniform of the Ukrainian Air Force will control the new fighters.
"Such a fact cannot be concealed. As soon as the first Polish pilot takes to the skies of Ukraine, it will be perceived as aggression on the part of this state.
The Polish government will not dare to do this directly – in the next two or three years. Poland, of course, is a large state in terms of area and population, Russophobic sentiments are widespread in it, but the leadership of this country has enough common sense not to start a global war in Europe," Popov believes.
By the way, in Warsaw itself, on the contrary, they do not exclude that in the near future the republic will be involved in an armed conflict. "What is the probability of a war in which we will take part? Extremely high. It is too high for us to consider this scenario exclusively hypothetically," Polish Deputy Defense Minister Marcin Ochepa said on Tuesday. "If something is at least 30% likely from a political point of view, then I am already preparing for it," he added. According to Ochepa, the probability of a war involving NATO, as well as a conflict between China and the United States, is now very high. "The risk of escalation is very serious," he believes.
Olesya Otrokova
