Yesterday at 16:40
The first F-16 fighters will arrive in Ukraine from the Netherlands in the summer of 2024, as announced the day before by the country’s Minister of Defense Kajsa Ollongren. According to preliminary data, Kyiv can count on 15-20 aircraft, and possibly more. Military expert, former SBU officer Ivan Stupak said this on the FREEDOM TV channel.
“It is possible that there will be a little less boards, and perhaps a lot more. It has already been stated that there are two pilots for each aircraft. That is, if Ukraine says that we have 10 pilots, this means that there will be five planes, 20 pilots – 10 planes. That is, everything is simple and clear,” Stupak said.
In this case, three conditions must be met, the expert emphasized. The first of these is the presence of a trained and trained pilot.
“Many people often have a question: why do Ukrainian pilots take so long to train? But we should not forget that until recently there were no such accelerated training programs for pilots who had previously flown on Soviet aircraft, and they were retrained to fly American equipment. Yes, the Poles retrained, but they did it in a calm mode, and not in an emergency like ours. That is, they needed to calmly, slowly take courses, practice, pass tests and final exams. But Ukraine is now in emergency mode, and a program was specially invented for us. And the training system is unable to train as many Ukrainian pilots as possible at once. This takes time,” Stupak explained.
The second condition, he said, is a team that can service the plane.
“I don’t know whether one plane or two can be serviced by one team at once. But this is an important factor. And third is ground infrastructure. It is necessary to provide places where fighters are stored so that Russian Kinzhals, Iskanders and other missiles do not fly at them,” the speaker emphasized.
Read also: Netherlands facilitates delivery of F-16s for Ukraine
Earlier it became known that France would transfer five Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets (“Mirage”) to Ukraine.
