Ukrainian Air Force F-16

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Ainen said:
During spring 2022, with VKS operating well over Ukraine, F-16 could've mattered.

Will they matter if Russia will intensify again in 2025?
Frankly, difficult to say. I personally consider the new gen SAM network (especially the relatively low key NASAMS) far more important for that case.

Though unlikely, doesn't seem VKS is any more enthusiastic about DEAD than in 2021.
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At the moment neither side crosses the frontline with its jets, the airspace is just too lethal even for aircrafts that come close to the frontline. So Ukraine uses its jets mostly as cruise missiles/drones killers. And this make them matter. They are very important for the defense of the ukrainian airspace.

https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-f-16-pilot-downs-6-cruise-missiles/
https://defence-industry.eu/ukraine...bat-successfully-intercepts-russian-missiles/
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2025/03/26/confirmed-ukraines-f-16s-run-elint-missions-against-russia/
 
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My dear @Flyaway : Before some of our @admin have a a free run deleting further posts as if they were harvesting souls at Armageddon, can we have this Thread Header changed to reflect that it includes all western airframe donated to Ukraine? (I think that would be in line with the spirit of this thread).
Something like Ukrainian Air Force F-16 and Mirage (until further change).
 
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Josh_TN said:
VKS undoubtedly has a huge range advantage, and I cannot see the ZSU being able to alter that. The F-16s probably are by far the best A2A equipment they have operated, but coming in distant second place is still dead, even if it’s a huge improvement over MiG-29.

If they still have those ASC-890s and they are datalinked to the F-16s, they could perhaps briefly solve the radar problem (with a lot of risk to a high end, two plane force) but the AIM-120s range limits compared to R-37 is so stark as to make a successful AAM engagement almost hopeless. Certainly it would at a minimum have to be something of an ambush against unsuspecting targets or targets whose escorts were heavily jammed, or both.

What ever happened to those AWACS anyway? Never heard anything about them after the donation announcement. Did that deal never go through?
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IMHO, training is the big issue here, the time lag would help if they can get there.
 
Josh_TN said:
VKS undoubtedly has a huge range advantage, and I cannot see the ZSU being able to alter that. The F-16s probably are by far the best A2A equipment they have operated, but coming in distant second place is still dead, even if it’s a huge improvement over MiG-29.

If they still have those ASC-890s and they are datalinked to the F-16s, they could perhaps briefly solve the radar problem (with a lot of risk to a high end, two plane force) but the AIM-120s range limits compared to R-37 is so stark as to make a successful AAM engagement almost hopeless. Certainly it would at a minimum have to be something of an ambush against unsuspecting targets or targets whose escorts were heavily jammed, or both.

What ever happened to those AWACS anyway? Never heard anything about them after the donation announcement. Did that deal never go through?
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Weren’t Sweden going to supply them with some AWACS aircraft?
 
TomcatViP said:
My dear @Flyaway : Before some of our @admin had a a free run deleting further posts as if they were harvesting souls at Armageddon, can we have this Thread Header changed to reflect that it includes all western airframe donated to Ukraine? (I think that would be in line with the spirit of this thread).
Something like Ukrainian Air Force F-16 and Mirage (until further change).
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I didn’t create this thread the Mods did as it was split off from the main F-16 thread by them.
 
Wotan said:
Well, if the Ukrainian Air force is mostly destroyed, how come that they are still operating, and with relative succes?

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/04...g-russian-commanders-with-french-smart-bombs/
After three years, Russia still did not succeed in imposing air supremacy over Ukraine or at least in the frontline area. Even when on russian soil in Kursk, the ukrainian soldiers were in danger mostly from drones attacks, not russian attack jets or helicopters.
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Read my post all the way carefully. I said most of the original Air Force has mostly been destroyed…I didn’t say 100% destroyed. Lots of countries donated aircraft with Ukraine receiving at least 70 helicopters of various types, plus several dozen MiG-29s, F-16s and batches of SU-25s, Mirages plus Ukraine was given spare parts to get decommissioned aircraft flight worthy. And they were also given avionics and weapons upgrades, logistics, training and global intelligence including targeting information.

And please stop using “Europmaiden” as a source. They are not reliable nor subjective, it’s simply propaganda. As for air supremacy, no Russia can not just operate willy nilly due to SAMS and MANAPADs and NATO surveillance but they still manage to drop hundreds of Fabs a month along with using various other air to ground and air to air weapons.

According to pro Ukrainian ORYX Ukraine lost 157 aircraft. Some sources claim Ukraine had as little as 120 aircraft in 2022, others have claimed 270 to at most 300 operational aircraft. With likely 25% to 50% + of those needing maintenance at any given time. So even according to pro Ukrainian sources most of their Air Force has been destroyed, they are living off donations. -157 from 120 = -37 aircraft

Hence why F-16s and Mirages are quickly being delivered to compensate losses.
 
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Galaxy said:
Read my post all the way carefully. I said most of the original Air Force has mostly been destroyed…I didn’t say 100% destroyed. Lots of countries donated aircraft with Ukraine receiving at least 70 helicopters of various types, plus several dozen MiG-29s, F-16s and batches of SU-25s, Mirages plus Ukraine was given spare parts to get decommissioned aircraft flight worthy. And they were also given avionics and weapons upgrades, logistics, training and global intelligence including targeting information.
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What would be more right to say in this situation is that "a significant number from the aircrafts that the Ukraine had at the beginning of the conflict were destroyed" not that the Air Force has been "mostly been destroyed". An air force is destroyed when it ceases to be functional and to conduct combat sorties, which is not the case for Ukraine. In fact, the Ukrainian Air Force is at this moment in a better shape compared with the beginning of the conflict and with capabilities that it had not in 2022. And most of the pilots that Ukraine had at the beginning of the conflict are fine, with combat experience, and flying now better aircrafts then the soviet era remnants they had before. They are not being destroyed, but constantly growing in capability.

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/fran...-shadow-missiles-for-strikes-on-russian-soil/
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/...es-to-bolster-defences-against-russian-forces
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/after...kraine-is-getting-another-long-range-missile/
My remark was that "it holds its own against a russian air force several times its size." It is to be remarked that most of the aircraft losses of the Ukrainian Air Force were at the airbases, to rockets and drones, not in combat with the Russian Air Force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...ar#Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine_(2022–present)

It is interesting to see what will bring the delivery of the AWACS to the Ukrainian Air Force. They could potentially gain the upper hand in the gathering of real time informations from the frontline area.

https://armyrecognition.com/news/ar...engthen-early-warning-and-air-defense-network
The russians mostly don`t use anymore their A-50 near the frontline after a series of catastrofal losses. And, anyway, the Mainstay is also a remnant from soviet times, with limited upgrades. It will not be on par with the more modern european AWACS supplied to Ukraina.
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2025/...-spot-ruaf-a-50-aewc-after-year-long-absence/
 
Wotan said:
What would be more right to say in this situation is that "a significant number from the aircrafts that the Ukraine had at the beginning of the conflict were destroyed" not that the Air Force has been "mostly been destroyed". An air force is destroyed when it ceases to be functional and to conduct combat sorties, which is not the case for Ukraine. In fact, the Ukrainian Air Force is at this moment in a better shape compared with the beginning of the conflict and with capabilities that it had not in 2022. And most of the pilots that Ukraine had at the beginning of the conflict are fine, with combat experience, and flying now better aircrafts then the soviet era remnants they had before. They are not being destroyed, but constantly growing in capability.

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/fran...-shadow-missiles-for-strikes-on-russian-soil/
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/...es-to-bolster-defences-against-russian-forces
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/after...kraine-is-getting-another-long-range-missile/
My remark was that "it holds its own against a russian air force several times its size." It is to be remarked that most of the aircraft losses of the Ukrainian Air Force were at the airbases, to rockets and drones, not in combat with the Russian Air Force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...ar#Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine_(2022–present)

It is interesting to see what will bring the delivery of the AWACS to the Ukrainian Air Force. They could potentially gain the upper hand in the gathering of real time informations from the frontline area.

https://armyrecognition.com/news/ar...engthen-early-warning-and-air-defense-network
The russians mostly don`t use anymore their A-50 near the frontline after a series of catastrofal losses. And, anyway, the Mainstay is also a remnant from soviet times, with limited upgrades. It will not be on par with the more modern european AWACS supplied to Ukraina.
https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2025/...-spot-ruaf-a-50-aewc-after-year-long-absence/
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Well if we want to get technical depending on sources 100% of the Air Force was destroyed and then some. The Ukraine Air Force certainly has better capabilities now due to F-16s, (which I will talk about more) Mirages, additional upgraded MiG-29s, Saab AWACs, integration of Storm Shadow into SU-24s, newly supplied air to air and air to ground munitions and NATO global intelligence. It being “in better shape now” also doesn’t change the fact that the majority of its aircraft were destroyed. What we are now witnessing is an Air Force that was rebuilt with the help of dozens of countries. A lot of its experienced and high ranking pilots are also dead including colonels, it’s pretty telling that the last F-16 pilot was previously a young SU-25 pilot. Some of the other pilots killed in Soviet aircraft were also previously trained in the United States.


Back to F-16s, it’s a good improvement over their Mig-29s especially with JDAM-ER munitions giving them range out to 80 km and the AIM-120Ds are very effective against drones and cruise missiles. They would probably also pair well with SAAB AWACs and the aircraft themselves are probably relatively easy to maintain and can be shipped to Poland or Romania for maintenance or upgrade. However, with all those great things, it was all recently acquired. It would be like China or Russia giving the Iraqi Air Force hundreds of fighters and then claiming the US led invasions didn’t achieve much and Iraq now has more capabilities because it can more effectively fight off NATO. Arming and aiding a country during or after hostilities is different from a country being attacked, isolated and alone like Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, ect.


According to your own sources the majority of Ukrainian aircraft were shot down/crashed and pilots killed. Not only that but Russian missiles strikes on Ukrainian bases killed Ukrainian pilots, very high ranking ones.

-23 aircraft of all types shot down 2014-2022. Most pilots killed.

-80 out of 163 fixed with aircraft shot down/crashed 2022-present. The rest destroyed by strikes. Most pilots killed.

-59 out of 71 rotary aircraft shot down/crashed 2022 present. The rest destroyed by strikes. Most pilots killed.

One Russian awacs was downed, the other ‘catastrophe’ and something Ukrainians boast about is the loss of a IL-76 transport aircraft loaded with Ukrainian POWs in which the Russians side informed the Ukrainians ahead of time with flight plans. Russian AWACS flights are also highly secretive so you wouldn’t know where they operate nor would some journalists. As recently as this July an SU-35 using an R-37M killed a Ukrainian MiG-29 from a distance of 212 km away. That would almost certainly suggest an AWACs as Ukrainian would utilize electronic warfare and low level flying to avoid being detected and as so it would be very difficult if not impossible for an aircraft to detect and then make a kill from those distances and circumstances alone.
 
NMaude said:
I'm not familiar with the website, what is bad about it?
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its a really bad source, every article they publish is very much full of fawning over equipment of russian origin, sorry to say but its a very biased source and has no real confirmation about the stuff they pubblish, they keep on blabbering about the Mig 41 for example or how the Su-75 is just behind the corner, the reality is that Bulgarianmilitary.com is a propaganda outlet and not a source to follow at all.
 
Archibald said:
Bul(shit)garianmilitary.com - don't use that horse manure as a source please.
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Who was using Bulgarianmiliary.com as a source?


ItalianAFDFail said:
its a really bad source, every article they publish is very much full of fawning over equipment of russian origin, sorry to say but its a very biased source and has no real confirmation about the stuff they pubblish, they keep on blabbering about the Mig 41 for example or how the Su-75 is just behind the corner, the reality is that Bulgarianmilitary.com is a propaganda outlet and not a source to follow at all.
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The same Bulgarianmilitary that wrote dozens of flattering articles about NATO equipment and countries? Seems like you are just bias and can’t accept that sometimes Russian equipment is modern or dare I say a challenge for NATO wonder weapons.
 
Galaxy said:
The same Bulgarianmilitary that wrote dozens of flattering articles about NATO equipment and countries? Seems like you are just bias and can’t accept that sometimes Russian equipment is modern or dare I say a challenge for NATO wonder weapons.
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Its not a serious source for anything. At best it repeats good information from elsewhere, at worst any kind of rumour or speculation.
 
Galaxy said:
The same Bulgarianmilitary that wrote dozens of flattering articles about NATO equipment and countries? Seems like you are just bias and can’t accept that sometimes Russian equipment is modern or dare I say a challenge for NATO wonder weapons.
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oh no i can accept when russian equipment is good, but the source is too flattering and incapable of being balanced on articles, i wouldn't consider it worthwhile, this isn't about bias, it's about lies and articles that don't provide accurate information, they make them only for engagement.
 
ItalianAFDFail said:
oh no i can accept when russian equipment is good, but the source is too flattering and incapable of being balanced on articles, i wouldn't consider it worthwhile, this isn't about bias, it's about lies and articles that don't provide accurate information, they make them only for engagement.
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I don’t want to hijack the thread but there are plenty of good articles by them and i don’t think I ever personally every used them as a source until I just posted that F-16 ELINT article about Ukraine using F-16 in the ELINT role and I didn’t pick up any bias, if anything it seemed pro Ukrainian.

The article even shared an interview with a Ukrainian F-16 pilot and some pro Ukrainian sources. I really didn’t see anything that stood out a propaganda or bias or lies. It was packed with lots of information, more information than 90% to 99% other publications that talk about Ukrainian F-16s.
 
Wotan said:
Here they come again.

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/202...f-16-fighter-jets-to-the-ukrainian-air-force/
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The Dutch F-16s are from what I understand the most capable of the used F-16s offered to Ukraine, back in January when I was reading this excellent book about the development of the F-35. Dutch F-16s were mentioned a number of times with the authors pointing out that the Dutch airforce spent serious time and money to regularly give hardware and software update their F-16s to keep them at USAF standards meaning that the Dutch F-16s were the only export F-16s fully interoperable with USAF F-16s.
 
Some footage has been released showing a Ukrainian F-16 intercepting and shooting down a Shaheed drone, from Suchomimus:


Footage shared today shows an F-16 intercepting a Shahed drone.
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Something else of note is that Ukraine is receiving from the Boneyard via Poland three mothballed F-16s.
 
Outdated. Ukraine just got direct US support for the F-16 ecosystem up to $330M, including airframe and training items.
We can only suppose those twinseaters are for in-country training* or support NATO training effort for Ukrainian pilots.

*Static simulators aren't made out of an entire fuselage.
 
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One thing that the Ukrainians could do with those F-16 fuselages once all useful parts have been stripped from them is to add radomes, wings, and empennages to them (Either real retired ones or high-fidelity mockups) to use them as high-fidelity decoys.
 
Going to be no living with Viper folks if this gets confirmed
 
It is confirmed.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...-jet-lost-ukrainian-military-says-2025-06-29/
Anyway, more ukrainian pilots are being trained in Romania in the European F-16 Training Fighter Center, which is going to significantly increase in size, and new batches of F-16 are going to be delivered to the Ukraine by it`s european partners.
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/romania-gets-18-dutch-f-16s-for-the-price-of-one-euro
On the long term, the F-16 fleet of Ukraine is steadily increasing, while the air fleet and the pool of trained pilots of the russian opponent is slowly but steadily decreasing because of their losses, which are several times bigger compared with the loses of the Ukrainian Air Force. The russians don`t have neither the resources or the allies which could allow them to cover the losses and maintain the strenght of their air fleet. Because of the attrition rate Ukraine has a strategic advantage.
 
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@Wotan
Ukraine received about 37 F-16s give or take minus 4 lost in combat and it also operates 3 mirages. They also received about 23 MiG-29s, the caveat is that Ukraine lost at least 87 MiG-29s, SU-24s, SU-27, SU-25 and a bunch of other types of aircraft that I’m not counting and scores of experienced pilots.

Russia is manufacturing about roughly 30 or more SU-30s, SU-34s, SU-35 and SU-57s a year and that number slowed because they cut back SU-57 orders until they get the redesigned SU-57M1 variant. In reality Russia can manufacture more as they have manufactured up to 20 SU-34s a year. Russia also manufactures about 250-300 helicopters a year. So your assessment is way off.

Russia also has over 4,000 aircraft so unless Russia halts manufacturing completely and then Ukraine somehow destroys 4,000 aircraft or receives at least 4,000 F-16s its safe to say you are living in a fantasy land.
 
Wrong. Russia does not have over 4,000 fighters and interceptors. Not even USA does not have such a number of fighters...
Russia has around 800 fighter/interceptor aircrafts.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/aircraft-total-fighters.phphttps://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/how-many-aircraft-does-russia-have-in-service-1979
And this is on paper. Some of them are not flying but just lying at the end of some siberian airfield since years...

Around 100 russian fighter aircrafts have been destroyed, so 1 in 8 from the total strenght in 3 years.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/03/list-of-aircraft-losses-during-2022.htmlhttps://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-russia-sukhoi-destroys-2091940
So 30 or so aircrafts per year will not cover the combat/accident losses and the aircrafts which need to be retired because of the end of their operational life, the fatigue of the airframes being exacerbated by the increased flight hours due to combat operations. The russian aircraft fleet is quite old. A significat number of their airframes dates back from the soviet era.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2015...ra-mig-31-fighters-to-fly-for-50-years-a45627
And this attrition does not happen only in the fighter category.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...russian-bomber-aircraft-than-russia-can-build

On the other hand, the ukrainian F-16 fleet is slowly but constantly growing
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/netherlands-completes-f-16-transfer-to-ukraine
https://militarnyi.com/en/news/accelerating-f-16-transfer-to-ukraine-belgium-produces-ninth-f-35/
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9eQ2TyPh24
 
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Which ever way you spin it , it seems Ukrainan F16 pilot survival rates in accidents against drones are not particulary high , like one of them argentinian non servicable ejection seat issues.Ukrainian f16 are directly from the boneyard, hence practicaly everytime one goes down pilot gets killed.
 
@Wotan try reading my post more carefully and staying on topic. This was an F-16 thread and you derailed it, focus more on facts instead of interjecting propaganda and pathetic clickbait YouTuber videos. Arguing with people like you is like nailing jelly to a wall. I never said Russia had 4,000 fighters, I said Russia has over 4,000 aircraft. This includes attack aircraft, helicopters, reconnaissance, transport, trainers, AWACS, and other special purpose aircraft.

Russia is able to manufacture over 300 aircraft per year and they have done it before. So unless Ukraine is able to destroy over 4000 aircraft or receive 4000 your claims are nonessential. Russia is already also building hardened aircraft hangars and tightening security around air bases so future Ukrainian attacks will be much more difficult. It’s incredibly rare for Ukraine to shoot down Russian aircraft no days as most losses have come from attacking airfields, or accidents. Ukraine making up hundreds of shoot down don’t count and I love how you are seemingly ignoring Ukrainian losses including mass Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian airfields.
 
I am on topic. Which topic is about the F-16 and it`s operations in the Ukrainian Air Force. Russia might have over 4,000 aircrafts on paper but here we discuss about a fighter. You cannot attack a F-16 with a Tu-95 bomber or a Mi-8 helicopter. So in our case it is relevant how many/what fighters and interceptors has the opponent against which the ukrainian F-16 operates.

Russia is able to produce 30 or so new combat jets per year, not 300. And the sanctions in place will not help. Russia can produce airframes, but it has to put some serious electronics in them. Which was in part of foreign production.
https://simpleflying.com/russian-combat-aircraft-production-rates/https://english.nv.ua/nation/russia...ure-western-details-for-su-jets-50411018.htmlRussian producers aren`t doing well either.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025...tdown-over-underpriced-state-contracts-a89556
So what we have here is a fleet of F-16 and trained pilots slowly but constantly growing, despite the several losses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-16_training_coalitionhttps://www.airforce-technology.com...ining-in-romania-in-defence-coalition-effort/https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2025/...ds-another-batch-of-f-16-fighters-to-ukraine/
On the other side we have an opponent with around 800 fighter aircrafts on paper, from which a lot could not be considered operational but just stored somewhere because of their age and maintenance issues. From these aircrafts almost half are soviet era age, the modern ones like Su-35 being a minority, under 200. We have seen the return of the mighty soviet T-55 on the battlefield, maybe in the future the russians will send also some Mig-23 or Mig-21 to the fight in order to keep the numbers...
 
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