Zelenskyy says problem with upcoming F-16 fighters is the same problem Ukraine had with Abrams tanks

• Ukraine is expected to receive its first F-16 fighter jets from its Western partners this summer.

• But the exact number of planes is unclear and Zelenskyy has said it probably won’t be enough.

• He compared the problem to Ukraine’s Abrams tanks, of which it only obtained 31 and did not use much.

Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets are on their way to Ukraine and are expected to begin flying missions later this summer.

But they may still not be enough to make a difference on the battlefield, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a discussion this week about Ukraine’s needs, comparing the jets to US-made Abrams tanks that Ukraine acquired last fall.

Asked by Fox News host Bret Baier at the Reagan Institute whether the 31 Abrams that Ukraine received, as its counteroffensive was already stumbling, made any difference, Zelenskyy he said: “I’m not sure if this number of tanks can change the situation on the battlefield.”

Speaking in Washington, DC, on Wednesday during the NATO summit, he said “it’s like the F-16 dialogue.” Utility comes down, in a way, to numbers and time.

“We always waited, like my mother waited for me after school,” Zelenskyy said. “This is the same, but much more serious.”

“The problem with the F-16,” the Ukrainian president said, “is the number and the dates.”

The Ukrainian president said that because Russia operates so many fighter planes “on the territory of Ukraine,” a small number of F-16s will not make a difference.

“Even if we have 50, it’s nothing. They have 300. Because we are defending, we need 128,” he said, adding that unless Ukraine has that amount of F-16s, they won’t “compare with them in the sky.” He said “it will be difficult”.

As Zelenskky noted, his concerns about the number of F-16s arriving and the timing of those deliveries mirror conversations surrounding the U.S.-supplied Abrams tanks, which arrived in Ukraine last fall. The US only sent 31 M1A1 Abrams in total, and they were delivered to Ukraine months after the British and German tanks.

O Abrams is recognized as a “tank killer” and celebrated for its lethality and heavy armor. It has a fearsome reputation, especially given its exploits in the Gulf War of the early 1990s. Experts and former tank operators have praised the Abrams’ capabilities, noting that it is far superior to any Russian tank.

But the Abrams has not been able to fight the battles it was created for in Ukraine, where mass armored attacks have not been an option and tank-on-tank combat is uncommon, it faces drone threatsanti-tank weapons and mines, and is a high-profile target available only in limited numbers.

For comparison, Ukraine received about 300 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, almost ten times more than the number of Abrams sent.

Zelenskyy’s comments follow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s announcement on Wednesday that the first transfer of F-16 fighters for Ukraine — from Denmark and the Netherlands — is ongoing.

“These jets will fly in the skies over Ukraine this summer to ensure that Ukraine can continue to defend itself effectively against Russian aggression,” he said at the NATO public forum.

The arrival of the fourth generation aircraft will be important for Ukraine and an update on Kiev’s Soviet-era airpower and another marker of closer relations with the West. But there have been questions surrounding how useful fighters will be on the battlefield and whether there will be enough jets and trained pilots to make a difference. There have also been concerns that they could arrive much later than when Ukraine needed them most.

The West attributed the long road to getting F-16s to Ukraine to complicated logistics.

“The problem is, for the F-16s, it’s not as simple as picking up the planes and delivering them. The planes need to be reconfigured from the different air forces they come from to make them suitable and usable for the Ukrainian Air Force. “, a NATO official told reporters at a press conference on the sidelines of Thursday’s summit.

The official also highlighted the training, logistics and capabilities needed to operate and defend the airfields and said the year-long process of acquiring and delivering the fighters was “really very good.”

“If you look at a program like this, usually, even [when an] If an allied country at peace takes over a new airframe like this, it could take much, much longer to get everything in place,” the official said.

In a call with the press on Thursday, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan acknowledged that the “ramp-up period” to get F-16s operational in Ukraine was significant, but added that the F-16s were expected to jets to have an impact in the short term. deadline and give Ukraine the ability to retake territory currently occupied by Russia.

Read the original article at Business Insider