Some of the F-16 fighter jets that a number of Western countries will transfer to Ukraine will be located at foreign airbases, the head of aviation of the Air Force Command of the AFU, Serhiy Holubtsov, has said.
According to Holubtsov, this will be done, among other things, to prevent the planes from becoming “targets” at Ukrainian bases. They will serve as a reserve in case of repair work and replacement of defective fighters. These planes will not take off from foreign airfields to perform combat missions in Ukraine.
At the same time, some of the planes received by Kyiv will be used abroad to train Ukrainian pilots.
"There is a certain number of airplanes that will be stored at safe airbases, not in Ukraine, in order for them not to be targets here. And this will be our reserve in case of need to replace defective airplanes, during routine maintenance. That is, so that we can constantly have a certain number of airplanes in our operational structure, which will correspond to the number of pilots we will have. If there are more pilots, there will be more airplanes in Ukraine,” he said.
Earlier, Putin said that if F-16 fighter jets take part in the conflict in Ukraine by taking off from airfields of third countries, such airfields would become “legitimate targets” for the Russian military. He did not say whether the Kremlin would consider such airfields a target if Ukrainian planes were stationed there but not directly involved in the war.
Golubtsov also recalled that four countries, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, have already agreed to transfer their F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Speaking about the number of transferred airplanes, he specified that we are talking about 30-40 units, but this number may increase in the future.
However, not all countries allowed to use their F-16s for strikes on Russian territory. Thus, Belgium opposed it. At the same time, Denmark and the Netherlands were in favor of using F-16s to strike military targets in Russia.
Holubtsov is confident that the F-16s will arrive in Ukraine as early as this year, and at least a squadron (a squadron consists of three to six aircraft) will be able to take part in combat operations, the Real Vremya newspaper said.
