NEW YORK, August 30. /TASS/. The F-16 fighter jets handed over to the Kiev government are vulnerable to Russia’s anti-aircraft missiles, while Ukrainian pilots lack experience to fly them safely, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported.
According to the report, the Kiev government hoped that the advanced Western aircraft would give its forces an edge on the battlefield. However, many of the aircraft it had received were "secondhand," had "decades of flying time already," and were also "vulnerable to Russian air defense missiles."
Besides, the training course for Ukrainian pilots was "accelerated" and their training curriculum - "not standard." "There’s still, very frankly, risk there," an unnamed US official told WSJ.
Earlier, an unidentified US official told the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine had lost a donated F-16 fighter jet in the first such case. According to the official, the jet was not shot down, and the crash was likely due to pilot error. Later, the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed the death of a Ukrainian F-16 pilot, Alexey Mes. The man was trained to fly F-16, according to CNN. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said the pilot was killed in an aerial fight, when his plane crashed on August 26.
Ukrainian lawmaker Maryana Bezuglaya said on Thursday the aircraft had been mistakenly downed by a Patriot missile in a friendly fire incident.