Ukraine Has Received F-16 Fighter Jets, Zelensky Says

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Ukraine Has Received F-16 Fighter Jets, Zelensky Says

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Sunday that his military had received a first batch of F-16 fighter jets. The long-awaited arrival of the Western-supplied jets should bolster the country’s defenses, although Kyiv appears to have received too few of them so far to have an immediate impact on the battlefield.

“F-16s are in Ukraine. We did it,”

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showing him at an air base addressing and meeting Ukrainian pilots. He was standing in front of two F-16s, and two more flew overhead as he spoke.

At the very least, the arrival of the jets will bolster Ukrainians’ morale, which has been dampened by months of slow, but steady Russian advances on the battlefield and devastating attacks on the country’s power grid.

Mr. Zelensky said Ukrainian pilots “have already started using them for our country,” but he did not say whether they had already flown combat missions in Ukraine. Nor did he say how many jets had arrived in the country.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, said about a half-dozen pilots were conducting test flights on as many jets in “uncontested” Ukrainian airspace. He said the Ukrainian pilots were getting acclimated to operations on a small scale and had not yet engaged the Russians.

Ukraine hopes the F-16s, highly versatile aircraft equipped with advanced radar systems and a variety of weapons, will help its fortunes on the battlefield, where Russia has held the upper hand for much of the past year.

The Ukrainians will use the jets to try to deter Russian pilots from entering Ukrainian airspace to ******* troops on the front line and in cities. The F-16s could also improve Ukraine’s ability to ****** down Russian missiles, easing the pressure on its weakened air defense systems.

But Ukrainian officials have warned that delays in deliveries of the F-16s could diminish the jets’ effect on the battlefield, giving Russia time to adapt its tactics. In recent weeks, Russia has targeted Ukrainian air bases in an apparent effort to limit the use of the F-16s ahead of their arrival.

The ******* States has agreed to arm the F-16s with missiles and other advanced weapons, which should help Ukraine conduct more long-range strikes behind Russian lines, said Nico Lange, a military expert and former ******* defense official.

Still, a shortage of trained pilots and the limited number of jets will constrain their immediate battlefield impact, experts say.

Western officials said this year that as few as six jets might arrive in Ukraine by the summer. About 20 Ukrainian pilots are expected to be capable of flying the jets this year, according to U.S. officials. That would allow Ukraine to deploy only about 10 F-16s in combat, given that each aircraft requires at least two pilots.

John F. Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, told the

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last week that the planes would be “ready to fly by the end of the summer,” adding, “There’s no reason to doubt that.”

The deployment of the first F-16s caps more than two years of intense lobbying by Ukraine to acquire the *********-made jets, which represent a significant upgrade over the *******-era aircraft that the Ukrainian Air Force has been using.

Initially, the Biden administration resisted the request for the F-16s over fears of escalating the conflict. But it reversed its stance about a year ago, allowing Western allies to transfer the jets to Ukraine. Since then, Western countries have pledged about 80 jets to Kyiv, though the vast majority of them will arrive over the coming years.

“We often heard the words that this is impossible,” Mr. Zelensky said on Sunday. “But we have made possible what was our ambition, our defense need.”

“Now it is a reality,” he said of the jets’ arrival. “Reality is in our skies.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

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