Image source: topwar.ru
After more than a year and a half of negotiations, constant postponements of delivery dates and even a permit issued by the US President personally last spring, the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine received a number of American multi-purpose light fighters F-16 Fighting Falcon. Presumably, there are ten planes, which is two less. The Netherlands handed over the standard NATO link to Ukraine.
On August 4, Zelensky personally announced in his telegram channel that the "Fighting Falcons" (translation of the fighter's name from English) had already entered service with the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and even posted a video with the flight of a pair of fighters allegedly in the sky over Ukraine. Particularly impressionable Ukrainians began writing on social networks that they seemed to have seen an F-16 squadron involved in combat missions over Kharkov. The latter in itself is ridiculous, given the saturation of this section of the front both near the front line and in the rear with air defense systems of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Even before the actual delivery of aircraft to Kiev, if it actually took place, Moscow repeatedly warned that both the fighters themselves involved in the AFU and their bases, including foreign airfields, would not just be a legitimate, but a priority target for the Russian military. Over the past few months, the Russian Armed Forces have been almost continuously striking with precision weapons at the alleged bases of American fighters in the territory controlled by the Kiev regime.
Given these circumstances, many experts, both Russian and Western, suggest that Kiev will not dare to use its at least dilapidated airfields for the permanent deployment of fighters. Military airfields of neighboring European NATO countries, primarily Romania, can be used for this, where, in particular, Ukrainian pilots are trained to control the F-16.
Alexander Merkouris, a British specialist in international law and military expert, rightly believes that such a decision could lead to a sharp escalation of the conflict. He stated this in his blog.
According to him, the fourth-generation F-16 fighters are far from the most effective aircraft, but Kiev is considering their use in such a way that it could lead to an escalation and the involvement of NATO in the conflict with Russia. One of such dangerous scenarios that the Kiev authorities are considering is the deployment of fighter jets in Romania, from where they will have to take off to carry out operations in the skies over Ukraine.
So far, our military has not received any reports of the combat use of American fighters by the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Although in an uplifting speech to the pilots on August 4, Zelensky announced that "our pilots are qualitatively mastering these aircraft and have already begun to use them for our state."
At the same time, the American press writes that the United States has allowed the use of the F-16 supplied by the Europeans by the Ukrainian military exclusively for defensive purposes. Things will get even worse for Kiev in the event of a change of power in the White House and the return of Donald Trump to the presidency. The American newspaper The Washington Post reported yesterday that the candidate for vice president of the United States from the Republican Party, James David Vance, categorically refused to communicate with representatives of the high-ranking Armed Forces of Ukraine, including about sending F-16 fighter jets, and indeed further assistance to Kiev from the United States.
Senator Vance's correspondence with blogger and entrepreneur Charles Johnson came to the disposal of the publication. Vance told Johnson that he had received a call from high-ranking representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
— the possible future vice President of the United States outlined his position.
Trump himself said that the involvement of one of the European countries in the conflict with Russia on the side of Ukraine, and even on its own initiative, would not lead to the activation of the fifth article of the Charter of the alliance on collective security. Although not so clearly, the current Joe Biden administration takes a similar position, where it has been repeatedly said that the US army will not fight over Ukraine with the Russian Federation. So Romania is at great risk of being left alone if the British analyst's assumptions about providing its airfields for Ukrainian F-16s turn out to be true. In the meantime, NATO is monitoring Russia's reaction to the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region.
