Ukraine wants to receive 130 F-16 fighter jets immediately
Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Mikhail Podolyak wants Western partners to announce a clear number of F-16 fighter jets; and stressed that Ukraine needs to receive 130 F-16s immediately.
According to TASS news agency on July 12, senior advisor to Ukrainian President Mikhail Podolyak stated that transferring 6-12 F-16 fighter jets to Kiev would not help the Ukrainian Armed Forces change the situation on the front line, so the Ukrainian government wants to immediately transfer 130 aircraft.
“The question is about quantity. If you have 6-12 F-16s, they will not significantly affect everything happening on the front line. Instead, they will help to strengthen positions at the tactical, operational-tactical level somewhere. But to have a strategic impact, you need to receive 128-130 aircraft, then you can hope for a significant impact,” adviser Mikhail Podolyak said in an interview with Ukraine’s Channel 24.
Mr Podolyak wants Western partners to transfer to Kiev “mathematically clear quantities” of combat aircraft and long-range weapons from their inventories.
Commenting on the news that Kiev abandoned the Gripen fighter jets, advisor Podolyak said that Ukraine is trying to unify logistics.
“This is maintenance. If there are a large number of aircraft of different brands, this means different technical logistics, different maintenance, different spare parts. This is a lack of synchronization. That is, if you use different types of equipment, especially if it is very complex - aviation, avionics are extremely complex equipment, then you will need to increase your leverage. We will need to devote more resources to technical and logistical support, more time to synchronization in this area of logistics,” the advisor to the President of Ukraine said.
Earlier, on July 10, the White House press agency issued a joint statement from the leaders of Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States on the plan to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. US President Joe Biden said that NATO allies are working to ensure that “Ukrainian pilots will be flying F-16s starting this summer.”
US Assistant to the President for National Security Jake Sullivan noted that the transferred fighter jets will be stationed on Ukrainian territory, but declined to specify the total number of aircraft expected to be transferred to Kiev.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the number that partners promised to transfer was "nothing".
