NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday said that while F-16s will boost Ukraine’s military, the fighter jets will not make a drastic difference in Kyiv’s war against Russia.
Stoltenberg made the prediction during a television interview with the German news outlet Bild, during which he discussed NATO allies supplying Ukraine with F-16s and training Ukrainian pilots to fly the jets.
Soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv officials began calling on their Western allies to provide them with Lockheed Martin-made F-16s, which are considered to be among the world’s most capable multi-role military jets.
Though Kyiv’s allies initially resisted requests for the jets, several countries last year committed to providing F-16s to Ukraine, though the timelines for the arrival of the aircraft remain vague.
Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images
But while some Kyiv officials have referred to F-16s as potential game-changing weapons for their defenses, Stoltenberg is not convinced the jets alone will alter the war.
“A single system can’t change the situation on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg told Bild, according to an English translation by the Ukrainian online outlet European Pravda.
The NATO chief continued, “This isn’t a silver bullet that could change the course of the war.”
Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday via email for comment.
While F-16s may not provide a decisive solution for Ukraine’s defenses, Stoltenberg said the jets are nonetheless “important” for Kyiv’s military.
“They will further strengthen Ukraine’s ability to repel Russian aggression,” he said.
Stoltenberg’s comments come after a high-ranking officer in Ukraine’s military told Politico in a Wednesday story that the delayed arrival of F-16s makes the jets “no longer relevant” for Kyiv’s forces.
“But often, we just don’t get the weapons systems at the time we need them,” the unnamed officer reportedly said. “Every weapon has its own right time. F-16s were needed in 2023; they won’t be right for 2024.”
According to the Politico story, Russia has been anticipating the arrival of F-16s by working out where to fit its advanced air defense and radar systems in Russian-controlled Crimea to target the aircraft.
Yet Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, told Newsweek for a previous story that Kyiv will still benefit from the fourth-generation fighter jets.
“They will help for our air defense, they will push Russian aircraft further from the frontline,” he said.
With Russia widely deploying powerful guided aerial bombs across the frontline, “F-16s can help us keep Russian jets further from the frontline,” Goncharenko said.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.