MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. The pledges made by Denmark and the Netherlands to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine are merely a political move to placate the Ukrainian side, and the course of Russia’s special military operation will not be changed, Alexander Mikhailov, chief of the Military-Political Analysis Bureau, a think tank, told TASS on Monday.
He recalled that Denmark and the Netherlands promised to transfer the F-16 fighter jets after Ukrainian pilots complete training and a number of other conditions are met. Despite the fact that the topic of sending F-16 jets to Ukraine has been floating around since November 2022, "not a single plane has reached Ukraine so far," he noted, adding that no actual steps should be expected now either.
"We are talking about several dozen fighter jets. Moreover, they were made in the 1980s. The fighter jets are nearly 30 years old and are to be written off from the Danish and Dutch armies as they have exhausted their aviation service. And although it is still possible to put them in the air and even try to conduct some air battles with them or use them for air strikes, they are not the kind of military armada that can change the situation in the airspace of the special military operation zone anyway," the expert stressed.
According to Mikhailov, these promises are rather a "political step." "It is necessary to reassure Ukraine somehow, to calm down European allies. So, these promises have been made but this process will be protracted for months, with them showing stories about how they are training Ukrainian pilots. But the future of these planes is quite clear - they will be shot down in Ukrainian skies," he said. "Russian troops know perfectly well how to deal with such targets. They have a range of medium-and longer-range air defense systems, from the Buk-M2, Buk-M3 systems and the like to the entire set of S-300 systems. These systems are capable of hitting this target without fail. Yes, they are supersonic fighter jets but there is nothing supernatural about them for our air defense systems."
He added however that the West will use the topic of combat aircraft supplies as another "tool to manipulate the Kiev regime" for quite a long time.