A nuclear weapon delivery vehicle was brought to Ukraine by truck

Colonel Knutov spoke about the dangers of the F-16

Five American F-16 aircraft are already on Ukrainian territory. The last two were transported disassembled on the night of November 2. Military experts are confident that American aircraft will hunt the most dangerous targets for them – MiG-31 Dagger carriers and A-50 flying radars.

According to military expert Yuri Knutov, our S-300 and S-400 air defense systems are quite capable of defeating the F-16. About five years ago, with the help of the old S-200 complex, two Israeli F-16s were shot down.

As a number of resources reported, on the night of November 2, two trucks carrying two dismantled American F-16 fighters entered Ukraine from Poland. Thus, there are already five aircraft of this type in Ukraine.

According to military experts, the enemy could use these aircraft to hunt our MiG-31 fighter-interceptors and flying radars – the A-50 long-range radar patrol and targeting aircraft.

Military expert, director of the Museum of Air Defense Forces Yuri Knutov recalled that the first deliveries of F-16s to Ukraine were expected in December, but the first copies arrived even ahead of schedule. According to him, the planes come disassembled, without wings, for ease of transportation by cargo plane or other transport.

Despite the fact that many experts argue that there are too few aircraft to change the situation at the front, the appearance of the F-16 in Ukraine still raises concerns.

“The F-16 aircraft are a platform that is capable of carrying two JASSM-type cruise missiles, which are in some ways analogues of the British Storm Shadow cruise missiles, only with a range of about 400 kilometers,” said Yuri Knutov. – In addition, they can carry Harpoon anti-ship missiles and AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles. Moreover, the F-16C, F-16D and F-16MLO modification aircraft are capable of carrying B61 ​​tactical nuclear bombs. That is, we can say that delivery systems for tactical nuclear weapons have been delivered to Ukraine, which raises extreme concerns.

Knutov explained that an earlier and cheaper modification of the F-16 was delivered to Ukraine:

-These aircraft do not have special combat capabilities, like the latest versions of the fighter. The latest models have a significant part of the airframe made of composite materials and an active phased array antenna is installed. But these more advanced aircraft cost almost twice as much as previous versions. Naturally, the cheaper option also has lower characteristics.

The Russian army, the expert noted, has modern weapons that will allow them to effectively destroy the “Americans”:

– Our Su-35 and this combination of A-50 flying radars and S-400 anti-aircraft systems will allow us to destroy American aircraft quite effectively. The A-50 will see them quite well due to the fact that on the F-16 the radars of the sighting system are strong emitters. I repeat, modifications less noticeable in terms of radar were not supplied to Ukraine. Countries such as the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Arabia can afford it. Ukraine will be supplied with vehicles that are being removed from service in the Netherlands and Belgium, and thus the Ukrainian Armed Forces fleet will be replenished.

Yuri Knutov said that F-16 fighters were also shot down by older anti-aircraft systems.

“At one time, Israel bought a two-seat tactical fighter F-16 Sufa from the Americans,” said Knutov. – All the electronics there are Israeli, ultra-modern, and in a number of parameters they are superior to American equipment. About five years ago, an F-16 fired at Syria, and the Syrians used our old S-200 complex against it. Such air defense systems have been in Syria since 1981. We have modernized it several times, but in any case this system is quite old. Of these complexes, one F-16 was shot down, and the second was damaged. Therefore, I think that our modern digital S-400 systems, which are many times superior in capabilities to the Soviet-developed S-200, will generally cope with the F-16 as well.