- Denmark says Ukraine could use the F-16 fighter jets it plans to supply to attack military targets in Russia.
- According to experts, this may not be the best use for the jets.
- Ukraine was not promised many, which makes every single gain a valuable one for Russia.
NATO member Denmark has given Ukraine permission to use the F-16 fighter jets it has received to attack military targets in Russia.
It’s unclear whether Ukraine intends to use its F-16 fighter jets in this way, or whether it would mean the jets themselves or just their munitions would end up in Russia. However, military experts told Business Insider that this isn’t the best use for them anyway, at least for now.
Denmark’s decision is part of a broader and influential shift in NATO control over weapons supplied to Ukraine. It represents a loosening of restrictions on how Ukraine can wage the war.
Since Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022, partner countries have prevented Ukraine from attacking military targets in Russia, giving Moscow a safe space to attack and putting Ukraine at a huge disadvantage. Over the course of the war, many attacks were carried out from Russian territory. Analysts have described this situation as if Ukraine was waging a war with one hand tied behind its back.
But some of Ukraine’s international partners have changed their approach in recent weeks. And now Denmark is the first country to give the green light to the upcoming F-16 aircraft. But just because it can, doesn’t mean it should.
A great danger
Ukraine is expected to receive its first F-16 fighter jets this summer. George Barros, a Russian military expert at the US think tank Institute for the Study of War, said it made “little military sense” to use the American fighter jets to “attack Russia at this time”.
“The deeper you go into Russian territory and the closer you get to the border, the more dangerous it becomes to fly,” he said. It is also more likely that you will lose high-quality equipment and well-trained pilots who are not so easy to replace.
Barros said this could be a great opportunity for them in the future, especially with more jets, “but we are not there yet.”
The country’s ability to attack Russia with other weapons is a great advantage for the country, but not necessarily the best for its relatively small F-16 fleet.
Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and defense strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, suspects “that the F-16 fighter jets will stay away from the front lines to evade Russian air defenses.”
When equipped with anti-radar missiles such as the AGM-88 HARM missiles provided by the United States, F-16 aircraft can be used to suppress and destroy air defense systems, but these are demanding and high-risk operations.
F-16s are big targets
Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at Britain’s Royal Aeronautical Society, said the F-16 could be useful for hitting targets in Russia but beyond the range of other weapons. The aircraft is capable of doing so, but attacking Russia is a risky proposition, especially for a fourth-generation aircraft that made its first flight in 1974.
He suspects that Ukraine, now that it has “finally got it in its hands,” wants to make sure “that it doesn’t lose it again straight away.”
Ukraine has been fighting hard to acquire F-16 fighter jets since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion, but the US banned other countries using these fighter jets from supplying them to Ukraine until it changed its mind in May 2023.
Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, said Ukraine would want to keep its aircraft “safe.”
Ukraine needs to be more careful with its F-16 fighter jets because it does not get many of them, experts say.
The exact number of F-16s Ukraine will initially receive is unclear, but it will not be many. Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium have promised Ukraine an estimated 85 jets in total. And France is sending an unspecified number of its Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets. While this is a gain, Ukraine cannot afford huge losses.
One problem is that Ukraine is expected to receive more F-16 fighter jets than it has trained pilots. A lack of available training slots in Arizona, Denmark and Romania means only about 20 Ukrainian F-16 pilots will be trained this year, Politico reported, limiting the number of jets Ukraine can fly into combat.
Apart from the number of fighter aircraft, Ukraine’s need to keep its fighter jets in the air also has a political aspect.
Professor Michael Clark, a Russia and Ukraine expert and British national security adviser, said Ukraine had tempered expectations about the effectiveness of the planes. Ukraine has indicated that the planes will be extremely useful against Russia, but there is a risk of backlash because of Losses or failure to achieve a major breakthrough.
He said that while analysts know that there are many setbacks in war and that things don’t go right the first time, an apparent failure of an F-16 offensive would cause great political damage to the Ukrainians, especially under the eyes of some U.S. Republicans and groups that are reluctant to support Ukraine.
For this reason, Clark said, the Ukrainians probably think that with regard to their F-16s, “it would be better to hold them back until they have more confidence rather than deploying them quickly and hoping that everything is OK, because there is a good chance that it is not.”
Cancian said the loss of F-16 fighter jets would be seen as a “big deal,” especially since so few had been promised to Ukraine.
He said some of the expectations placed on the Ukrainian F-16s were unjustified. The US Air Force, for example, could be strengthened by deploying “hundreds of aircraft with extensive support systems on the ground”. the air fleet and ground infrastructure that Ukraine’s embattled air force lacks.
Avoid Russia
The experts said the jets are unlikely to fly to Russia because of the dangers there. And if they do, they will probably only fly rarely. Even flights over Russian-occupied territory are dangerous.
Cancian said there could “perhaps be one or two low-level attacks over Crimea just to have a symbolic and psychological effect, but it is simply too dangerous for routine use.”
What is notable, however, is that Ukraine is increasingly launching attacks on air defense systems on the occupied peninsula and elsewhere.
ISW suspects that “Ukrainian forces may make an organized effort to weaken Russian air defenses, which could enable Ukraine to use manned fixed-wing aircraft more effectively (namely by deploying F-16 fighter jets) long-term.”
And Ukraine has shown its willingness to take bold steps.
Layton acknowledged that Ukraine could make a bold attempt, pointing out that the country has already achieved great success with other risky maneuvers, such as shooting down Russian planes.
“Tactically, they are very smart,” he said. “I don’t think they would do it, but if they did, they would do it very carefully organized and fairly quickly.” But overall, he said, “a push into Russia leaves them far too vulnerable.”
“Personally, I think it would be foolish for the Ukrainians to send their planes across the border in relatively small numbers because I believe the Russians will outnumber them,” he said.
Robinson noted that Russia has a “massive air defense network” that can attack the jets, which do not have the stealth capabilities of fifth-generation jets. Ukraine also has such a network, and that is why Russian jets have rarely entered Ukrainian-controlled airspace. In Russia, however, Ukrainian aircraft must expect to fight the Russian Air Force in addition to enemy air defenses.
“The problem is that there won’t be very many F-16s and they will be very vulnerable flying over Russian territory,” said Mark Cancian.
F-16s could be left behind
Instead, Cancian said, he expects them to be used primarily defensively – away from the front lines, protecting cities and infrastructure from Russian drones and missiles. The F-16 is good at defense and played an important role in the Noble Eagle mission to defend U.S. and Canadian airspace after 9/11.
He said the F-16s “would not fly over the front lines, but that was not really necessary” because other weapons could hit Russia and defend the front lines.
Layton agreed that Ukraine’s first F-16 fighter jets would be best used for defensive purposes, remaining on Ukrainian territory and performing an air defense role to shoot down Russian drones and cruise missiles.
However, he was more optimistic about the possibility of a Ukrainian attack on Russian targets. He said this could be achieved without the aircraft’s flight path to Russia. He suspects that Ukraine would have the necessary intelligence to carry out such an attack without too much risk.
A crucial aspect of the F-16’s operational capabilities is what kind of missiles and bombs the aircraft can carry. Ukraine does not currently have the full range of capabilities.
But Ukrainian pilots may be the quickest to mount defensive measures, and it would likely be the most effective thing Ukraine could do without a larger number of aircraft, the experts said. It would also bolster a capability that has been severely strained by the relentless Russian attacks, namely air defense.
Experts don’t expect the F-16s alone to make much of a difference in the war, especially if there aren’t more of them. But they said these fighters will be useful to Ukraine by replacing lost aircraft, deterring Russian jets and serving as a defense.
“Whenever they arrive,” Cancian said, “it will be a good time for Ukraine because they will strengthen the country’s military power.”
Robinson said the F-16s would “make the Russian pilots there a little more cautious, they’ll be a little more cautious about what they encounter.”
