(Dan Tri) – Ukraine was forced to admit that its air defense forces have temporarily lost the ability to shoot down Russian tactical aircraft.
Ukrainian F-16 fighter (left) and Russian Su-35 are about to have heated confrontations in the skies of Ukraine (Illustration: Telegram).
What does Ukraine do to stop Russia’s `miracle weapon`?
On March 27, in the US Forbes magazine, expert David Ax said that Russia’s guided glide bombs are `miracle weapons` and that it will take several months for Ukraine to be able to counterattack with fighter jets.
American experts said that the Russian tactical air force dropped 125 glide bombs every day and helped destroy the Avdiivka fortress, which the Ukrainian armed forces spent 8 years building.
The Forbes article also quoted a soldier from Ukraine’s 3rd Azov Assault Brigade saying: `Wherever Russian bombs hit, only bomb craters remained in the buildings.`
Faced with the situation of Russian aircraft dropping bombs incessantly, Ukraine took the risk of deploying rare Patriot air defense systems close to the front line area and shot down a number of enemy tactical aircraft.
However, after being discovered and destroyed by Russia, Ukraine had to withdraw its Patriot missiles to the rear and was forced to admit that its air defense force had temporarily lost the ability to destroy Russian and Russian fighter jets.
Does F-16 help Ukraine change the battlefield situation?
Lieutenant General of Ukraine Ivan Gavrylyuk, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, said that the appearance of F-16 fighter jets will help repel Russian glide bombing attacks.
Some pro-Ukrainian social networking sites said, `Ukrainian pilots flew F-16 fighter jets provided by NATO, took off from the Romanian Air Force Base, and landed at an airport on Ukrainian territory,
Some residents of the Transcarpathian border area saw F-16 fighter jets in the sky over the border between the two countries, but it was unclear whose plane it was.
Although Ukraine wants the F-16 to appear on the battlefield, with the current situation, they cannot access the relatively advanced fighters that the West promised to aid.
According to analysts, the F-16 can deal with Russian tactical air forces, but it is basically of little use.
To meet the operational requirements of the F-16, Ukraine must renovate a number of airports close to the border with NATO countries as bases, and at the same time repair a number of airports close to the front line area, with the goal of
Surely NATO countries bordering Ukraine will not risk allowing Ukrainian F-16s to land and take off, because such actions escalate the war in Ukraine.
US-made F-16 fighter (center and right) with Ukrainian Su-27 fighter during exercises in the US.
The most worrying thing for Russia
There is one thing that Russia knows but cannot do anything about, which is sharing NATO intelligence information with Ukraine.
The F-16 fighter is actually just an early 4th generation fighter aircraft, which has been removed from combat service by countries such as Denmark or the Netherlands.
However, with the help of intelligence information from the US and NATO from F-35 stealth fighters, early warning aircraft, high-altitude strategic reconnaissance UAVs, reconnaissance aircraft, and
At this time, Ukraine’s F-16s only act as `workhorses`, using long-range air-to-air missiles AIM-120C, launched in a `fire and forget` style outside the range of air-to-air missiles.
Historically, Pakistani F-16 used AIM-120 air-to-air missiles to shoot down Indian MiG-21.
Not long ago, the US RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude strategic reconnaissance UAV flew over the Black Sea area to monitor the results of the Ukrainian army’s missile attack on the military port of Sevastopol in the Crimean peninsula.
NATO early warning aircraft operating over the Black Sea region or NATO early warning aircraft conducting reconnaissance beyond Ukraine’s borders, are controlled from NATO command centers in Romania and Poland.
NATO’s electronic warfare aircraft do not need to fly into Ukraine, but just fly over the airspace of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to detect Russian Air Force fighters taking off and provide support.
In the fight for air superiority, just having advanced fighters is not enough, it requires a whole synchronous system.
However, NATO’s early warning aircraft force is not omnipotent, because Ukraine’s territory is too large, so its ability to detect targets in the country’s eastern airspace is also limited.
Lacking early warning aircraft, F-16 fighter jets are like blind people.
Ukraine is about to receive F-16 fighter jets, this is an old model produced 40 years ago and it cannot have technical and performance advantages compared to Su-30SM, Su-35 and Su fighters.
But for Russia, in the absence of the A-50 early warning aircraft, the effectiveness of detecting the F-16 will decrease.
War is a confrontation of systems, not a game of chess, and it is impossible to turn the battlefield situation with one or two advanced weapons (except nuclear weapons), let alone one type of weapon.
Ukraine wants to soon receive F-16 fighters donated by the West (Photo: Reuters).
Will Moscow sit still and let NATO act?
Russian news agency Interfax on March 27 quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as warning that in case Ukraine receives US-made F-16 fighters, third countries must not allow them to take off at the airport.
`If they are used from a third country’s airport, they will become our legitimate target, regardless of where that target is,` President Putin said before a group of Russian soldiers in the Tver region.
Mr. Putin affirmed that Ukraine receiving F-16 aid does not change the situation on the battlefield.
