Ukraine’s Future F-16 Fleet Just Got A Lot Bigger

It took a year of determined diplomacy, but it’s finally happening. Ukraine is getting Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters. Lots of them.

Norway on Thursday joined The Netherlands and Denmark in announcing it would donate to the Ukrainian war effort surplus F-16s that its own air force is replacing with newer Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters.

If three countries give away every single F-16A/B Mid-Life Update jet that either already is surplus, or could become surplus in the coming months, Ukraine could get more than 60 F-16s.

As it happens, that’s just about the right number to transform the Ukrainian air force, according to Ukrainian air force brigadier general Serhii Golubtsov.

“To plan an operation from A to Z, I think it is worth talking about at least a squadron, at least 12 to 16 planes,” Golubtsov said earlier this year.

But while a dozen F-16s could form a coherent unit, it would take several such units to tilt the local aerial balance of power over one stretch of the Ukraine front. “If it will be at least three to four squadrons, I think that in a separate direction we will be able to gain superiority in the air and force the enemy to completely abandon the strikes they are currently making in a certain area, on a certain defense lane,” Golubtsov said.

When the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden signed off Ukrainian F-16s this spring, observers did a quick count of the immediately available airframes. They focused on the European F-16A/B MLUs, which were built in the 1980s but went through a major upgrade program in the early 2000s.

The MLUs fully are compatible with a wide array of precision-guided munitions—some of which Ukraine already has, others of which Ukraine hopes to get. Unlike many surplus U.S. Air Force F-16s, the European jets recently were in active service and wouldn’t necessarily need extensive overhaul before going to Ukraine.

Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway always were the top prospective donors. The Netherlands has 24 active F-16s plus another 18 in flyable storage. A new batch of 18 F-35s—joining 24 F-35s already in Dutch service—soon will replace the remaining active F-16s.

After selling off most of its F-16s in favor of F-35s, Norway still has a dozen of the older jets in some hangar somewhere. Denmark meanwhile flies around three dozen F-16s and keeps another two dozen or so in reserve while it awaits its own new F-35s.

There’s very little stopping Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway from giving away all their remaining F-16s. Any reduction in their front-line fighter inventory would be brief as more F-35s roll off the factory floor in Texas.

Golubtsov just might get his four squadrons, a force sufficient to replace half of Ukraine’s existing Soviet-vintage jets or, alternatively, to grow the air force by half.

To be sure, Ukraine clearly is expecting to staff a sizeable F-16 force. It has signed deals with Denmark, The Netherlands and the United States to train scores of pilots through early 2024.