Pirate's Cove

Ukraine already has fighter jets, about 81, comprised of Russian made Sukhoi Su-27 and Mikoyan MiG-29. What, exactly would giving them F-16s do, considering they would need to spend months and months training to use them?

Democrats, Republicans join up to urge Biden to send F-16s to Ukraine

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing President Joe Biden directly to send F-16 warplanes to Ukraine as the fight against Russia’s invasion enters its second year.

Five House members argued modern jets — which Kyiv has sought, but the administration has so far not agreed to — “could prove decisive for control of Ukrainian airspace this year” in a Thursday letter to Biden obtained by POLITICO.

“The provision of such aircraft is necessary to help Ukraine protect its airspace, particularly in light of renewed Russian offensives and considering the expected increase in large-scale combat operations,” the lawmakers wrote.

The letter was organized by Maine Democrat Jared Golden. Also signing on were Democrats Jason Crow of Colorado and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Republicans Tony Gonzales of Texas and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.

Russia has over 900 fighter jets, most of them multi-role, along with 121 bombers and 197 close air support, plus all sorts of others. Did these 5 war mongers consider that the Ukrainian air force would still be overwhelmed if Putin decided to truly involve Russia’s air force? Did they consider that Ukraine, once they actually received the F-16s and were trained, might decide to use them for direct strikes inside Russian borders?

The lawmakers contend that fighters — either the Lockheed Martin-manufactured F-16 or something similar — would give Ukrainian forces greater capability than ground-based artillery provided by the U.S. and other nations.

“F-16s or similar fourth generation fighter aircraft would provide Ukraine with a highly mobile platform from which to target Russian air-to-air missiles and drones, to protect Ukrainian ground forces as they engage Russian troops, as well as to engage Russian fighters for contested air superiority,” they argued.

If this is their argument, it’s a piss poor one, which fails to truly explain how the Ukrainian air force could operate in a theater where their numbers would be overwhelmed by Russian forces, and would simply escalate the conflict. And where Russia could become peeved that U.S. made fighter jets supplied to Ukraine where attacking Russian troops, bases, and planes.

And, who maintains them? It takes about 25 people per plane to do so, and 16 hours of maintenance per hour of flying. And then you need all the weapons, which are different from what is loaded on the Russian made jets. Will we be supplying them, too? And, from that link about the number of Russian jets

As we’ve already discussed regarding the establishment of a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine, advanced Russian air defense systems like the S-400 Triumpf have an operational range of around 250 miles. That means Ukrainian fighters would need to engage air defense systems inside Russia and potentially even Belarus in order to take control of their airspace (as multiple Ukrainian officials and pilots have championed as part of the request for these fighters). Otherwise, these air defense platforms could continue to shoot down Ukrainian jets that strayed too close to Russian territory.

But Russian air defense systems aren’t the biggest reason Ukraine would need to send its newly-gained F-15 and F-16 fleets into Russia—the biggest reason is that most Russian airstrikes are launched by aircraft that never leave Russian airspace.

Well, this is just a wonderful idea, right? If you want to push towards WWIII.