Report: Ukraine receives first batch of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets

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FILE - An F-16 fighter lands at a Turkish air base in the Central Anatolian Turkish city of Konya on Sept. 8, 2004. Norway said Wednesday, July 10, 2024, it will donate six F-16 in the course of 2024 to Ukraine because Kyiv's “ability to defend itself against attacks from the air is absolutely crucial in its defensive battle against Russia.” / AP

Ukraine has received its first batch of long-awaited American-made F-16 fighter jets that will help the country fight back against Russia's superior air power, according to news reports.

A top advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak, said he would neither confirm nor deny Ukraine had received the F-16s. Other Ukrainian officials were similarly tight-lipped.

However, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on X, quote, "F-16s in Ukraine. Another impossible thing turned out to be totally possible."

Four European members of NATO - the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Norway - have publicly pledged to send the war planes to Ukraine, starting this summer.

Bloomberg reported a small number of planes has just arrived in Ukraine, though there was no immediate word on which country sent them or how many had reached Ukraine.

Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine says it needs more than 100 of the US-made aircraft to effectively counter Russia, which has a well over 1,000 of its own fighter jets.

Ukraine's existing air force is relatively small and consists largely of aging, Soviet-era aircraft the country inherited when it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The planes are vulnerable to the Russian forces and don't often take to the sky.

Ukraine has relied largely on air defenses to keep the Russians from completely dominating the skies over Ukraine. Those air defenses have been upgraded with Western systems, like U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries.

But Ukraine has been insisting since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 that it also needed effective fighter jets.

President Biden and U.S. military leaders had long opposed sending the F-16s, citing a number of reasons. One was a concern over an escalation in the fighting. Another is that the F-16s are extremely expensive and challenging to maintain, and those resources could be better used by providing Ukraine with air defense systems and other weapons.

However, Biden dropped his opposition in August of 2023. Ukrainian pilots have been receiving training in number of NATO countries, including the U.S.

Many military analysts say they believe the F-16s will help Ukraine, but they are not expected to result in a major change in the trajectory of the war. They also say they think Ukraine will use the warplanes primarily to counter Russian air attacks.

They note that Russia has strong air defenses and the F-16s will be vulnerable when carrying out offensive operations.