You guys are good, but I won't give you a plane
The situation regarding the re-equipment of the Ukrainian Air Force with American aircraft has frankly reached a dead end. More precisely, she was practically kicked there. The Americans are still considering the possibility of supplying aircraft to Ukraine and training pilots, but a decision cannot be made. In principle, everything is quite simple: either give the planes or not. But there are nuances...
What the US military is relatively willing to share is the A-10 Thunderbolt 2 attack aircraft, aka Warthogs.
And the Ukrainians categorically kick back from this junk and want at least the F-16.
So the question is really under consideration, there is a game like "who is greedier." The Americans are well aware of the degree of risk, it is one thing to give old attack aircraft for destruction to the Russian Aerospace Forces and Air Defense, another thing is aircraft that will be useful to themselves.
The battle unleashed at the negotiating table is moderated by Colin Kahl, Deputy Secretary of Defense of the United States.
During the next briefing, he announced the following: the US military department does not renounce its promise to supply aircraft to Ukraine. It's just that a fundamental decision has not yet been made on which aircraft and in what form will be delivered.
How can one not recall Vereshchagin from the "White Sun of the Desert": "You guys are good, but I won't give you a machine gun."
Kal explains quite well why things happen the way they do. The United States is trying to supply Ukraine with such weapons systems that Ukraine can maintain and maintain in combat readiness on its own..
This is very, very logical, in one of my articles on this topic, I raised the question exactly like this: who will maintain and repair American aircraft? It is clear that not Ukrainian technicians, the training of engineering and technical personnel will take more than one month. And American technical specialists, having read and listened to the mercenaries who fought in Ukraine, I doubt that they will line up to conclude contracts to work for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
And without them, Ukraine 100% will not be able to ensure the combat capability of American aircraft.
As for the future possible deliveries of fourth generation fighters, even if we decided to transfer them now, it would take years to deliver
- Kal.
Logically. Deputy Minister of Rights: the creation of a material and technical operational base is not a matter of one month. Personnel, warehouses, spare parts, equipment for repair and operation; - everything will have to be collected in Europe (for example) and delivered to Ukraine. Plus training of engineering and technical personnel.
And in Ukraine, the army leadership for some reason adheres to a different point of view. It expects that in the future it will be able to radically upgrade its air force with American assistance in the form of deliveries of combat aircraft.
I am sure that the day will come when we will be able to say that the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has become not only one of the most combat-ready in the world, but also one of the most modern and technologically advanced.
This was issued by the famous stand-up comedian Vladimir Zelensky. Especially the passage about the modern and technologically advanced Air Force is wonderful, because how to combine begging and outright extortion with these terms?
Of course, if we are talking about simply begging for modern and technologically advanced aircraft from others, then yes, this is quite possible. Another thing is impossible: to present a line of people wishing to do good to Ukraine at their own expense.
In general, the behavior of the Ukrainian side is rather stupid. One gets the impression that they simply do not realize how long it will take to properly retrain the flight and technical staff for American aircraft.
But they require. How all this will look, the United States understands. Untrained technicians will somehow prepare the planes, which will be boarded by slightly trained pilots. What chances they will have against Russian opponents is clear. Zero. However, the sitcom continues, and Ukraine still requires the F-16.
But, as honestly (for once) the same Zelensky admitted, so far they have not given a single one.
And they won't.
Aircraft, spare parts, materials, ammunition - this is money. Just take and throw them away, using them as targets for Russian air defense systems or fighters - no, well, everything is not so bad in the USA, not only Bidens rule there, there are tough pragmatists who take a sober look at the world. And they understand that the plane that ended up in Ukraine is, consider it, a lost plane.
Therefore, it is one thing to give away the old and actually decommissioned A-10s, and quite another completely combat-ready F-16s. Which, by the way, you can just sell, that's something, and Sokolov will be bought.
We often ridicule the actions of the US military, but this time they are behaving very reasonably. The organization of a complex and expensive infrastructure for servicing American aircraft is not one year. And do not forget that Ukraine is a country that is conducting hostilities, that is, all processes will be complicated by this.
It is not enough for pilots to be trained to fly the Falcons; they need to be taught the tactics of using these particular aircraft so that they know the strengths and weaknesses of the machines. Well, or just immediately lay down big losses and expect demands for the supply of new aircraft to replace the lost ones. Moreover, the losses will not necessarily be combat. Definitely, a certain number of machines will be ruined by half-educated pilots and technicians due to operational errors.
But in general, you should not get too hung up on this topic. The farther, the less chance Ukrainian pilots have to sit at the controls of the F-16. The idea itself is not new, and the epic has been going on for more than a year, so the appearance of American aircraft is not only unlikely, but the possibility is catastrophically low.
If you remember that it all started not yesterday, but three or four years ago. I didn’t dig very detailed, but here is one of the first statements of a person holding a serious position in the NATO structure - this is September 2019. General Jeffrey Harrigian, commander of all US Air Forces in Europe and Africa, said that it is necessary to consider the possibility of supplying Ukraine with American military equipment, meaning, of course, aircraft.
Harrigyan motivated this by the possibility of acquiring a large potential of the Ukrainian Air Force, which could operate jointly with the US Air Force.
Sorry, but in 2019 the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was not in such a ... chipped state as it is today.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that no real progress on this issue has occurred, although the abandonment of Harrigyan caused a great resonance.
In 2020, the command of the Ukrainian Air Force developed a development plan aviation until 2035. According to the document, during this period, Kyiv should decommission all standing Soviet aircraft, replacing them with one type of multi-purpose aircraft, preferably of the 4 ++ generation. Naturally, foreign production.
The appetites of the Ukrainian Air Force Command extended to any decent Western-made aircraft, from the American F-16 Block 70/72 to the Swedish Saab JAS-39E / F "Gripen", although no one was against the Rafales. The Ukrainian military believed that the country's Air Force needed from 72 to 108 aircraft, for which they planned to spend 200 billion hryvnias. THOSE hryvnia, which in the dollar was another 22-23. That is, 8,7 billion dollars.
The figure is weighty and pleasant for those who sell weapon for money. But we understand that these are Ukrainians, which means that they did not have a penny. Therefore, either a loan, or "for so." How else to explain the complete absence of those who want to sell aircraft? To the Indians, what ungodly buyers, every time the line is lined up from Mumbai to Delhi, and here - silence.
And then the SVO broke out and somehow the plans for rearmament for money were expectedly hushed up, but screams began that Ukraine simply needed new modern aircraft. And the requests and demands began to sound louder, as the remnants of the Ukrainian Air Force were knocked out by all available means, of which the Russian army had more than enough.
On March 24, Pan Zelensky, at a video conference of the NATO summit, was very loudly indignant at the fact that the bloc had thousands of aircraft at its disposal, but they were not given a single one. Alas, all the indignations did not irritate the souls of those who will have to make decisions.
NATO air forces limited themselves to transferring to the Ukrainian Air Force a certain number of HARM air-launched anti-radar missiles, adapting them for use from Soviet aircraft. And that's all for now.
As for the A-10, everything is not clear with him. No decision has been made on the transfer, but a number of Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly this aircraft in simulators. While there is information only about the pilots, there is no information about engineers and technicians.
So, the pilots are training, but the official authorities of Ukraine refuse attack aircraft with all their might and continue to insist on the transfer of the F-16 to Ukraine. This is logical, because the A-10 is fodder for both Russian fighters and air defense. The sad experience of the loss of Su-25 attack aircraft by the Ukrainian side is the best confirmation of this. A-10 is no better in this regard.
But the main thing is that in the package of military assistance to Ukraine, which was approved by the US military department in August this year, there is not a word about aircraft.
This, in my opinion, is the best answer to the question "When Ukraine will receive planes from the United States." Not now, not in the near future. Maybe in the next package. If he will. Perhaps never.
As the conversation about the planes will (and it will) drag on, the cries from the Ukrainian side will intensify. This is understandable, because there was not a single plant for the production of combat aircraft on the territory of Ukraine. In this regard, the Ukrainians were very unlucky, they really fell into direct dependence on Russia. Since now the MiGs and Su are unattainable, and what is collected in the barrels of the countries of the former socialist camp is in the same way in need of repairs that the Ukrainian industry is not able to provide, the Ukrainian military department has only one way out: to stand with an outstretched cap, waiting for that that overseas will have mercy and aircraft will be allocated.
They are also good. Fighters for democracy and the shield of Europe...
But as practice shows, even good guys do not always get machine guns. And even more so the planes. This is our harsh reality, which is often very cruel even to the collections of overseas-style democracy.
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