Are Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets too little too late?

The long-awaited arrival of American F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine marks “a new chapter” in the war against Russia.

So said Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday, confirming for the first time that the aircraft had started operations against Russian forces. “We often heard the answer that it was impossible,” the Ukrainian president said during the unveiling ceremony for the country’s Air Force Day. “Now it is a reality.”

Kyiv has been urging its Nato allies to provide the supersonic “Fighting Falcons” jets since the early days of the war. The so-called F-16 coalition of European nations – led by Denmark and the Netherlands, and including Belgium and Norway – promised to send 79, but had to await US approval for the export, which the Biden administration granted only last August. Training pilots to use the aircraft has since taken months.

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Their arrival is “better late than never”, said The Economist. Although numbers are “too few”, their importance “should not be underestimated”. The immediate impact will be a “boost to morale”. They could also “lessen the impunity” with which Russian glide-bomb aircrafts have been “pummelling Ukraine’s front lines”; the Russian aircrafts’ range means they don’t have to leave Russian airspace and risk being shot down. The F-16s can use cheaper heat-seeking missiles to take out those munitions.

The Russian offensive around Kharkiv this year put “immense pressure” on Ukraine’s defensive lines. Russia sought to “capitalise” on that with “devastating” missile and drone attacks on civilians and infrastructure – even schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, politicians “dithered and delayed time and again” with “pointless discussions” about Russian escalation. Western lawmakers “insist on the political luxury of time” – which Ukrainian frontline troops “pay for in blood“.

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