Russia has been targeting Ukrainian air bases in anticipation of F-16 deployments.

 

An Ukrainian MIG-29 pilot. Newsweek.

Russia has been targeting Ukrainian air bases in anticipation of F-16 deployments. Newsweek. There have been three major strikes in the past few days. On Monday, a Russian drone spotted several SU-27 fighter jets via drone and destroyed 4 or 5 of them at Myrhorod airbase. The next day a MI-24 attack helicopter was destroyed at the same air base. Yesterday Russia destroyed a MIG-29 at Dolgintsevo air base. All three attacks involved drones flying uncontested to gather intelligence for Iskander missile strikes. The fact that the drones were not shot down shows how weak Ukraine's air defenses are at this point of the war and raises questions how F-16's and Mirage fighter jets are expected to fight in Ukraine. 

My Comment:

There's two aspects to this story that are actually important. The first is less obvious but it's the fact that Russia can apparently fly drones over Ukraine's air bases with impunity. Supposedly these drones were flying over these bases for hours gathering targeting data for the Iskander strikes. That's fairly incredible that there was no real attempt to shoot these drones down or even detect them. 

What does that mean? It means that Ukraine's air defenses are a joke at this point. These air bases are critical strategic instillations and apparently Ukraine isn't able to protect them. Though there are going to be more deliveries of missiles soon, I don't think it will help. There is simply too much ground to cover. 

The other important thing is that Russia is sending a message to the countries donating F-16's and Mirages. If they do those jets will likely be destroyed on the ground so sending them is a waste of time. Ukraine was able to keep an air force throughout the war due to air defenses, but those defenses are gone now. 

Not that the F-16's would have been all that effective regardless. Russia has air superiority and a few outdated fighter jets are not going to change that. The Russians still have their air defenses and powerful fighter jets of their own. I am guessing that all the F-16's could be used for is as missile trucks and that's about it. 

But if these air bases aren't viable they can't even do that. With the airbases coming under attack even delivering these fighter jets would be difficult. And if they are delivered they won't last long. Russia has shown they can hit Ukrainian air bases at will. 

The only real solution is to try and operate out of NATO bases but that opens a can of worms that could lead to nuclear war. After all you would be hard pressed to argue that doing so wouldn't give Russia a casus belli to strike those air bases as well. And since F-16's can be armed with nuclear weapons the Russians might indeed treat such a deployment as a prelude to nuclear war and react accordingly. 

It does make me wonder if F-16's and Mirages will ever actually be deployed. The downsides seem to outweigh any advantage deploying them would provide. Of course not deploying them would cause NATO to lose face and that seems to be the only thing that is important to them these days...