“If a pilot can be retrained in a few months (although this is very difficult in reality), some crews are now undergoing retraining, but ensuring the maintenance of these aircraft at Ukrainian airfields will be even more difficult. There should be approximately 30-40 technicians per aircraft. In the longer term, this will probably be more realistic. There may be such deliveries at the end of the year. But they don’t change anything,” explained Alexey Podberezkin, director of the Center for Military-Political Studies at MGIMO.
According to military expert of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine Dmitry Drozdenko, the main problem is the F-16 itself, that is, the training of crews and the preparation of operating sites.
“Denmark, the Netherlands and potentially Norway are rearming with the F-35. That is, giving away their modifications to C/D, which are old enough, in principle, does not pose any special problems for them. The issue is with basing, because points on the territory of Ukraine will be hit, especially since attacks have already been carried out on a potential airfield in Ivano-Frankivsk and so on. The potential base is probably Romania... But, of course, there is nothing good in this, and, most likely, my opinion, as before, is that foreign pilots will be in control,” concluded RT’s interlocutor.
Earlier, Naev said that Ukraine would receive American-made F-16 fighter jets along with missiles with a range of up to 500 km.