Ukrainian troops massed around the city have the unenviable task of pushing through minefields toward an enemy that has long anticipated their advance.
But their biggest handicap is that they rarely listen until it’s too late. Russian planes fire half-metric ton bombs that glide in from afar, just out of range of Ukraine’s air defenses, and then devastate Ukrainian positions at will. Sometimes up to 20 are released in as many minutes to Orikhiv.
Ukrainian radar systems provide some warning, along with the brief, ominous roar of an oncoming missile. But the end goal is often obliterated without warning.
So when Ukraine says it badly needs F-16s, it’s because Ukrainian troops are dying daily due to Russian air superiority. Despite Western promises, even the training has not yet started. On Friday, Ukraine welcomed the news that the United States has approved the transfer of F-16s when training is complete. But it remains true that Ukraine is unlikely to receive planes until next year.
Living room critics of the slow pace of Ukraine’s counter-offensive seem to have conjured up a superhuman Ukraine, capable of overriding any basic military precept, based on the collapse of Russian positions in Kyiv’s lightning advances on Kharkiv and Kherson last year. They now hope that an Army that was nearly written off 18 months ago can now achieve a feat that no NATO Army would even attempt.
NATO militaries would not consider attacking the minefields and defenses along Zaporizhia’s southern front without high-end armor, demining equipment, air superiority, and a well-trained force. But somehow, the West has allowed itself the luxury of impatience that Ukraine cannot take an army of often mobilized youth, quickly trained in new equipment, and invade Russian-controlled territory by the fall.
“It is very scary”
Ukrainian troops are well aware of the impact that the F-16s could have on the Russian forces and the fighting, as they are now suffering the same from Russian aircraft.
A Ukrainian marine on the southern front told CNN: “I fully understand what aviation is with its equipment and firepower. It’s very scary.” He said the Russians would feel the same effects as the F-16s. “It will make things a lot easier as they won’t feel safe in their rear positions. Not everyone will be psychologically prepared to return to the trenches after an air raid.”
In Ukraine’s busy cities, where air-raid sirens are so constant that locals hardly stray from their path when they go off, F-16s would make it possible to intercept or challenge some of the Russian missile-firing planes from a distance. It would interrupt the terror that Moscow inflicts on civilian areas every night. When you’re lying in Dnipro, listening to the sirens and waiting for the explosions, any debate about whether Ukraine needs more air defenses seems ridiculous.
The task of bringing high-end aircraft to Ukraine has always been an ambitious one.
The supply of F-16s, with the intense amount of training and servicing they require, would always have brought NATO as close as it has come to being a fighter. The planes need Ukrainians to become masters of their maintenance overnight, and there was always a risk that NATO personnel would be called in to fill in the gaps or help repair the planes inside NATO territory. . And that’s why the pace has slowed down.
Whether there are enough suitable Ukrainians to be trained, or whatever the other bureaucratic hurdles, it is clear that there is still no will among NATO states for this to happen. They have learned that they can do things fast if they want to; they did it with Leopard tanks.
The calculation may have been made that the risk of NATO being drawn into war is too high to justify moving faster with F-16s. That it’s easier to bet on whether Ukraine can succeed in their counter-offensive, with one hand tied behind their back.
In the cellars of Orikhiv, where Ukrainian troops sit and wait to find out if oncoming missile boosters will land near them, it’s a gamble that seems callous and uncaring.
