Secretary of State Blinken said that Ukraine will receive the F-16, but deliveries will take months
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that Kiev will receive the F-16, but it will take months to supply and retrain Ukrainian pilots. At the same time, the White House does not expect that the fighters will change the course of hostilities, and in Ukraine they complain about the lack of "more banal things." "Newspaper.Ru" talks about Washington's concerns and what kind of response Moscow has to the delivery of fighter jets.
A matter of several months
Ukraine will receive American F-16 fighter jets, but their delivery will take several months, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said live on CNN.
"It is important to focus on ensuring that when they (the APU) receive them, they would be properly prepared, able to service these aircraft and use them wisely," the official said.
The fact is that in order to use the F-16, it is necessary to train pilots, establish a maintenance process, and organize opportunities for using fighters in combined-arms operations. All this takes time, Blinken stressed.
Image source: Alina Jus/"Newspaper.Ru"
As the Secretary of State noted, the American military leadership is making every possible effort to determine which weapons are most effective for the Ukrainian side and which could be delivered and used in the shortest possible time.
How will F-16s affect the course of hostilities?
The coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, spoke on July 20 about the transfer of the F-16 to Kiev by the end of this year. At the same time, he expressed the opinion that even if Ukraine receives fighters, the course of hostilities will not change. In his opinion, the Ukrainian side is more in need of artillery.
As noted by the ex-adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Alexey Arestovich (included in the list of terrorists and extremists), the AFU lacks cars, machine guns, mortars and even small arms. He noted that the problems in the Ukrainian army were not due to the lack of F-16 or American ATACMS ballistic missiles, but because of more banal things.
The agreement to send the F-16 to Kiev was announced at the G7 summit (USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan), which was held in Hiroshima in May. Zelensky pointed to the existence of a coalition of states ready to start training Ukrainian pilots, but the mission schedule has not yet been drawn up due to the delay in announcing the timing of the transfer of fighters.
Assistant to the US President for National Security Jake Sullivan a few days ago promised to start training Ukrainian pilots to control the F-16 in the coming weeks. According to him, the places for training will be determined by the American authorities in cooperation with Romania, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway.
The last two countries plan to launch the very training program for Ukrainian pilots. It is they who, according to Politico, can transfer the fighters to Kiev. The Netherlands estimates that it will take six to eight months to retrain Ukrainian pilots to control the F-16.
Russia's response and reputational risks
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with RT last week that Moscow would give an answer if the F-16 posed a threat to Russia and began flying over Ukrainian territory.
"The F-16 is a military-technical product, so, of course, if we see that these planes flew over Ukraine and pose a threat to us, of course, there will also be a military-technical response," the minister said.
A week earlier, Lavrov stressed that the Russian side would perceive the transfer of fighter jets as a threat, since they could be equipped for the use of nuclear weapons.
According to him, the policy of the United States and its allies in transferring weapons to Ukraine creates risks of a direct armed clash with Russia, which is "fraught with catastrophic consequences." Even if the F-16 fighters delivered to Kiev are not equipped for the delivery of nuclear missiles, Lavrov stressed, "our military will not deal" with what is installed on each aircraft.
As reported in the Telegram channel Mash, the Aresleaks group managed to get acquainted with a secret CIA document, which states the prohibition of the use of all weapons supplied to the Ukrainian army in direct battles with the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Otherwise, the US threatens to cut the amount of funding. So Washington allegedly wants to avoid reputational risks against the background of the appearance of footage with destroyed Abrams tanks and AWACS aircraft.
Heavy counteroffensive
Also, according to Mash, the United States is delaying the transfer of the F-16 because of the Russian S-300 air defense installations, which effectively close the airspace and can destroy American fighters.
Blinken, in an interview with CNN, admitted that the AFU counteroffensive is difficult.
According to him, the Russian armed forces have organized a "reliable defense".
The Wall Street Journal newspaper in this regard wrote that the hopes of Western countries for the courage and resourcefulness of Ukrainian soldiers were not justified.
According to the publication, the Ukrainian army is wasting offensive potential without significant progress, as it cannot cope with minefields, a network of powerful fortifications and Russian aircraft in the air due to a lack of material and human resources, as well as tactical flexibility.
Anastasia Novikova
