Ilya Ponomarenko on Western military aircraft and the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Channel 24 Collage
Ukraine needs Western fighters not only now in the battlefield. The problem is much deeper, because someday the entire fleet of Soviet military aircraft will have to be updated.
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Ilya Ponomarenko, a war correspondent for The Kyiv Independent, told Channel 24 about this. Recently, talks have become more frequent that Western fighters and bombers should be handed over to Ukraine.
According to Ponomarenko, talks about providing aviation to Ukraine are extremely important. The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, long before the start of a full-scale war, sounded the alarm that the fleet needed to be updated. Therefore, if the Armed Forces of Ukraine do receive Western military aviation, they will be able not only to use it on the battlefield, but also to save the Air Force itself.
After all, the Soviet aircraft owned by Ukraine are exhausting their resource and operational capabilities. This applies to both fighters and attack aircraft, transport aircraft.
If I'm not mistaken, our Air Force said that by about 2030-2035 we will have completely exhausted the resource and will remain without aviation. Long before the war, they sounded the alarm and said that it was necessary to allocate money, buy new squadrons, Ponomarenko noted.
American fighters and attack aircraft
Information about the potential transfer of Western military aviation to Ukraine is now very different . Someone talks about European, somewhere you can hear about American. Ilya Ponomarenko believes that Ukrainians should expect to receive American aircraft in the long term.
Of course, it would be great to get Eurofighter or Gripen. But Ponomarenko does not see much enthusiasm from manufacturersconcerning the conclusion of contracts or financing of such projects for Ukraine. In particular, this applies to the Swedish Saab, which produces Gripen aircraft.
However, there are also positive signals. Ponomarenko recalled a bill in the US Congress to train Ukrainian pilots on F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. There are also rumors that many support the transfer of the legendary A-10 attack aircraft. The latter are not the newest aircraft, but they are very common and much easier to maintain.
Of course, there are questions from specialists who will maintain aircraft and infrastructure. In addition, if the same MiG-29s can take off from ordinary highways, then it is much more difficult to do this with the F-16. There will be many challenges. But in any case, we need to work on getting such aircraft. This is important both now and in the long term.
Recall that the other day the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shot down a Su-35 near Nova Kakhovka. This is one of the best fighters currently in service in Russia. Ukrainian defenders hunted him for several days.
