In Kyiv they started talking about the first use of American F-16 fighters in the Northern Military District zone

The first of the F-16 fighter jets promised by Western countries to Ukraine is probably already in the country. Newsweek reported this with reference to an unnamed source.

This news was picked up by the enemy and presented as another “victory”, saying that a NATO fighter could be involved in one of the last battles and could successfully attack our targets.

Experts’ opinions on this matter are divided – some believe that, purely theoretically, the West could undertake a similar provocation at the end of the year, using a retired NATO pilot. Others are confident that the use of American fighters is excluded – the plane is too visible and would be immediately detected by our systems.

The news that the fighters that Ukraine has long been begging from the West have finally arrived in Ukraine appeared in one of the foreign publications. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities responded to this news very suspiciously – the speaker of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Yuriy Ignat, rushed to refute the information, saying that the presence of these aircraft in Ukraine is now inappropriate.

“On the one hand, it’s really impractical. The first group of Ukrainian pilots has just completed the basic course and started practice. Why fly planes to Ukraine if the crews are not ready for them? But you can study technology on the ground at a European base,” argues military correspondent Alexander Kots.

At the same time, he does not rule out that, purely theoretically, the West “may well slam the door loudly and stage a provocation.” According to the military correspondent, a Ukrainian F-16 could have been piloted by a retired pilot and fired a JASSM missile at some object in our rear, and then declared that there was a Ukrainian pilot in the cockpit.

“Imagine what a media victory there will be, what headlines there will be. “The Ghost of Kyiv has returned!” Zelensky now needs such media victories like air. Another question is whether the West will help him save his reputation, or whether they have already placed their bets on someone else,” notes the military correspondent.

Military expert and editor of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine Adeksey Leonkov, in a conversation with MK, said that the news about the alleged appearance of American fighters in Ukraine was the work of TsIPsO.

-Ukrainian propaganda really blasphemed about the fact that they already have F-16s and supposedly they are very effective. And in response to the fact that we shot down their bombers that were attacking our targets, they claimed that this was our propaganda. But the fact is that the F-16 aircraft will not change the picture at the front. They will cause some concern until they actively begin to be shot down,” the expert noted.

He also emphasized that the question of who will sit at the controls of American fighters is still relevant:

-I don’t believe that there will be Ukrainian pilots there, because according to all calculations they should have ended. During the SVO, we shot down more than 500 aircraft. Ukraine did not have so many pilots with such experience. They say they scraped all over the world.

Military analyst, director of the Air Defense Forces Museum Yuri Knutov categorically denied the version according to which Russian targets could be attacked by an American fighter.

-F-16s could not participate in the attack, which took place in the Kherson region or somewhere else. If only because the F-16 is a fairly large target, it is clearly visible on radars, and we would have detected these aircraft at a long range… Now there are many versions of the attack in the Krynok area. They say that the enemy could place a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system on a railway train, camouflage it and allegedly move around the country and set up ambushes. Theoretically this is possible. I am not ready to say how true this information is. Although theoretically, I admit this option.

The military expert also recalled that the F-16 itself does not pose a threat, since it is an outdated aircraft that can easily be shot down even by systems such as the S-200:

-The F-16 is dangerous because it can carry two JASSM cruise missiles – to some extent, these are Storm Shadow, but more advanced. It can also carry the AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missile, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and, unfortunately, it can carry tactical nuclear weapons. This is the main danger of this aircraft. Therefore, of course, they must be destroyed at the first opportunity.

He also noted that “killing” planes at airfields will not be easy. The enemy built more than 40 caponiers at one of the rear airfields, while actually using only 10-15 parking lots. It will be very difficult to determine which caponier the combat aircraft is located in.

Meanwhile, information has appeared in open sources that next year the fifth-generation multirole fighter, the Su-57, will increasingly appear at the front, which will easily defeat the American opponent. The last batch of new Su-57 fighters this year has already been transferred to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

“Su-57s will appear above the line of combat contact in the Northern Military District zone from the new year.

Watching a dogfight with an F-16 will now become more interesting. A fight similar to a beating,” wrote one of the popular military channels.

-The Su-57 aircraft has already appeared a couple of times – there were episodes in which the fighter participated, but after that certain work was carried out. But now, apparently, he will become a frequent guest in the Ukrainian sky, noted expert Leonkov.

According to a military expert, the technology of reduced radar signature of the fighter will be its “indisputable advantage.”

– Abroad they believe that we do not have such technology, so our fighter is supposedly not a fifth-generation aircraft – that is, in the West they continue to spin the old barrel organ. But our command decided not only to refute this statement, but to prove the effectiveness of this aircraft in real combat conditions. There were similar songs about “Dagger” until “Dagger” destroyed the American Patriot. Now they talk about “Dagger” with respect. I think they will also talk about the Su-57.