Ukraine's F-16s May Have Shot Down Their First Russian Jet
Emphasis on 'may'
There are unconfirmed rumors Ukraine’s ex-European Lockheed Martin F-16s have shot down their first manned Russian warplanes.
A Russian blogger claimed a Ukrainian air force F-16 downed a Russian air force Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber last week while the twin-engine, supersonic Su-34 was conducting a bombing raid with KAB guided glide-bombs. The two crew aboard the Sukhoi reportedly died.
The Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. scrutinized the purported shoot-down and reported it “cannot verify the claim.”
But if an F-16 did take out a Russian glide-bomber, and that’s a big if, it would make sense. The Ukrainian air force is equipping its 1980s-vintage, but heavily upgraded, F-16s for air-defense missions. And the biggest aerial threat from Russia right now is Su-34s armed with the 25-mile-range KABs.
Ukraine’s single-engine, supersonic F-16s—around 85 of which the country is getting from Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway—previously engaged, and reportedly shot down, Russian drones on Aug. 26. One ex-Danish F-16 crashed during that initial air-defense operation.
The small Ukrainian F-16 force, which as of late August included just half a dozen or so jets, seemingly went silent following the fatal crash—which killed pilot Oleksiy Mes—and the subsequent political controversy in Kyiv, which culminated with the Aug. 30 firing of the head of the Ukrainian air force, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk.
It was inevitable the F-16s would return to action, of course. Ukraine is counting on those 85 F-16s, as well as a dozen or so ex-French Mirage 2000 fighters, to rebuild its battered air force, which has lost most of its pre-war force of around 125 Soviet-vintage fighters and bombers in the 31 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine. The air force has also restored potentially scores of grounded Soviet-era airframes.
When the air force first displayed its F-16s in public back in August, the jets were armed with American-made Raytheon AIM-9 infrared-guided dogfighting missiles as well as Raytheon AIM-120 radar-guided air-to-air missiles for longer engagements. While an F-16 is compatible with an array of air-to-ground ordnance, the initial loadout on Ukrainian F-16s strongly implies their main mission will be air-to-air, at least at first.
It makes sense. The Russian air force lobs a hundred glide-bombs a day at Ukrainian troops and civilians all along the 700-mile front line. The KABs are a “miracle weapon” for the Russians, Ukrainian Deep State noted. And before the F-16s arrived, the Ukrainians had “practically no countermeasures.”
Lt. Gen. Ivan Havryliuk, Ukraine’s first deputy minister of defense, said back in March the F-16s would have to break Russia’s dominance in the air. The slow pace of F-16 deliveries, a year after Ukraine’s allies first pledged the jets, has delayed that aerial confrontation. The Aug. 26 crash that killed pilot Mes further delayed it.
But it’s possible the fight now is on—assuming, of course, that the Russian blogger is right and it was an F-16 that shot down that Su-34.
Read more:
