The Netherlands and Denmark will give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the Dutch prime minister says
The Netherlands and Denmark will give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the Dutch prime minister says
Such great news and if the numbers are correct, a decent number of jets.
It's a great start though from checking Wikipedia earlier it looks like Ukraine will still be heavily outnumbered so hopefully more keep coming. At a minimum it's going to significantly contribute to leveling the playing field.
Air superiority would be fantastic and I hope it's what they get in the medium term.
any estimates on when the crews and infrastructure will be combat ready?
Best not get too hung up on timetables, or think about it in terms of the current battlefield situation or the counteroffensive. This is a long term project to transform Ukraine's Air Force into the future, where they're using Western equipment.
We may see the first F-16s next year, but this transformation will take many years.
Yeah this is definitely a case where the best time would have been years ago but the second best time is right now.
It should take 3 to 6 months to form pilots and mechanics. Maybe 9.
A Danish military expert mentioned that an estimated timeline would look like 6-8 months depending on conditions. Weather in Denmark isn't known to be favorable, especially during autumn and winter, which might add to the timeline with lost flying days and Ukrainian pilots might arrive with more know-how than estimated making it possible skip some flying lessons.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It recently launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s forces without air cover, placing its troops at the mercy of Russian aviation and artillery.
Zelenskyy welcomed the ‘’historic’’ announcement and praised Rutte for making the Netherlands the first country to offer the planes.
The announcement came minutes after the two leaders inspected two gray F-16 jets parked in a hangar at the Dutch base in the southern city of Eindhoven.
“It makes me proud that Denmark, together with the Netherlands, will donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine’s fight for freedom against Russia and its senseless aggression.
The Dutch and Danish governments are also involved in a coalition that is working to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the advanced fighter jets.
In a video message earlier Sunday, Zelenskyy vowed a stern retaliation for a Russian missile strike the previous day in the center of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv that killed seven people and wounded over 100 others.
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One thing I've missed in the discussion of sending F-16s is the role they'll play.
From what I've seen, Russia still has significant air defense capabilities, and they launch air fired weapons from deep in their own territory. So, if the F-16s can't get too far upfield, due to defenses, and there isn't much they can do in air-to-air combat, what advantage do they have over longer range artillery?
“Western fighters with stand-off weapons would offer Ukraine an improved capability to destroy fixed Russian targets near the frontlines from a safer distance,” he tweeted, but “they would be adding to existing strike options like Himars [rocket artillery] and drawing from limited stockpiles”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/01/how-would-f-16-fighter-jets-aid-ukraine-against-russia
Thanks.That's kinda what I thought, but assumed I was missing something with the amount of attention the transfer of this one weapon platform has received. I guess it's also symbolic of the level of commitment by NATO, since it's not just a few planes, but also ammo plus training plus support framework.
I'm glad we're not just throwing ammo at the situation and wishing Ukraine the best of luck, though I do wish we were doing more.
Is there a consensus on why this war is happening?
"is there a concensus" fucking hell 🤯
Who pays you?
Just go away with these “both sides” dogwhistles.
I know it's important to be vigilant against that form of uncritical-thinking-masquerading-as-unbiased-thinking, but please also consider that it's hard to tell it apart from genuine interest and seeking to understand, especially in an online context. I don't know the solution per se, because we have such limited views into each others' worlds through text / social media. But I do know that if people can't ask questions in one place, they will go elsewhere to find their answers.
I don't understand what you meant by that.
People killed people, then people killed more people, but then people promised to kill more people in the future. So war.
Humans are awful sometimes.
Good. They should receive everything they need.
Wars are just not fought that way, and to think that somehow ukraine has the ability to create a safe maintenance infrastructure in mid war is ridiculous. They can't even do that with leopard tanks. They have to haul this stuff back to germany/poland for repair.
So you recomend not to help? Or what else could we do?
Fine by me.
Hauling back to Poland or Germany is simply more convenient : Russia can't bomb those countries, and they already have the people to fix the tanks there.
It's not for now, it's for later.
Ukraine has to start swirling over to NATO weapons platforms, so they have to start somewhere.