As F-16s Arrive, Ukraine Still Faces Steep Challenges in the Skies

The surveillance drone appeared high above the Ukrainian air base without warning in early July. Minutes after it relayed targeting data back to a Russian base, a barrage of ballistic missiles struck the airfield, Ukrainian officials said, recounting the episode.

“That first hit was so powerful that even our windows were trembling,” said Valeria Minenko, 21, who lives near the air base in Myrhorod, central Ukraine, one of many targeted in relentless attacks by Russia in recent months.

“Now they’re hitting the air base with the rockets all the time,” Ms. Minenko said.

Russia has been saturating the skies over Ukraine with surveillance drones, exploiting gaps in air-defense systems, to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks on Ukrainian positions. Its dominance in the air along parts of the front has allowed it to bombard Ukrainian positions with hundreds of powerful guided bombs every day, helping its ground forces to make slow and costly gains.

Ukraine’s strategy was to counter Russia in the air war with the aid of long-coveted F-16 fighter jets from the West that it says it will deploy this summer.

But the assaults on Ukrainian air bases underscore Russia’s determination to limit the impact of the planes even before they enter the fight. They also highlight the challenges Ukraine faces as it prepares to deploy the sophisticated aircraft for the first time.

Ukraine is hoping the F-16s, which come with powerful electronic warfare systems and an array of other weapons, can be used in coordination with other Western weapons like Patriot air-defense systems to expand the area deemed too dangerous for Russian pilots to fly. They also hope the jets will add another layer of protection for Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure from relentless missile and drone attacks.

But a shortage of trained pilots and a limited number of jets will constrain the immediate impact, experts say.

“Russia has had so much time to fortify its defenses, especially along the frontline areas,” said Hunter Stoll, a defense analyst at RAND, a research organization. “The F-16s and their pilots will face stiff resistance from Russian air defenses, both on the ground and in the sky.”

Ukraine says it is “in the process” of moving the first F-16s into the country, about two and a half years after it first pleaded for the aircraft. It has been a year since the Biden administration finally reversed policy and allowed Western allies to transfer American fighter jets to Ukraine.

“Today, we can already say clearly, we have entered the club of countries that have F-16s,” Yuri Ihnat, a representative for the Ukrainian Air Force, said in an interview. “This is a turning point for our nation.”

The arrival of the planes — the exact number has not been publicly revealed — comes at a moment of deep uncertainty in the war. Russian forces are engaged in furious assaults all along the 600-mile front, the Ukrainian energy grid is crippled by years of unrelenting bombardment and a presidential election in the United States could reshape future military assistance.

In addition to the Russian attacks on the Ukrainian airfields, Ukraine will also be constrained by the small number of trained pilots, according to Ukrainian and U.S. military officials. About 20 airmen in the various U.S., Dutch and Danish training pipelines are expected to be ready this year, according to U.S. officials.

Air commanders say they typically allot at least two pilots per aircraft — for crew rest, training and other matters. So that would allow Ukraine to fly only about 10 F-16s, at most, on combat missions this year.

Another major limiting factor, these officials say, is the number of trained maintenance and support personnel on the ground to keep the F-16s flying.

“It’s not just the pilots you have to have,” Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a longtime F-16 pilot, said last month. “Maintenance is also a key part of that, and training the maintainers.”

Gen. Serhii Holubtsov, chief of aviation of Ukraine’s air force, said Ukrainians “do not wear rose-colored glasses” and understand that the F-16 is “not a panacea.”

The strategy, he told Donbas Realiy, a branch of Radio Liberty, can be thought of in three phases — “crawl, walk, run” — and it will take time.

“We haven’t learned to crawl yet,” he said.

Before the jets can start to play a role in shaping the battlefield, Ukraine needs to be sure they can be protected. While Russia has been attacking Ukrainian airfields since the first hours of the war, the early July attack on Myrhorod was different, Ukrainian officials said.

“The enemy came up with a new tactic,” Mr. Ihnat said.

Specifically, he said, the Russians are improving missiles and reconnaissance drones, “making it so that we cannot influence them with electronic warfare.”

They are also preprogramming surveillance drones to fly deep into Ukraine without emitting telltale electronic signatures, making them harder to detect.

Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said this past week that Ukraine urgently needed to find new methods of destroying enemy drones.

Mr. Ihnat said that the Ukrainian air force had effectively adopted deception tactics — like building model planes to act as decoys, camouflaging aircraft and moving them — to protect its depleted fleet of Soviet-era aircraft, and would do the same for the F-16s.

“If someone wants to laugh at this, let them,” he said. “Thanks to the models, the enemy has already lost dozens or even hundreds of their missiles.”

Ukraine is also employing 1970s-vintage Yakovlev Yak-52 training planes to hunt Russian surveillance drones, he said.

The propeller-driven aircraft have been hunting Russian surveillance drones across southern Ukraine, with both Ukrainian and Russian forces posting videos of the aerial clashes.

General Holubtsov said he expected attacks on the airfields to increase. For that reason, he said, Ukraine will not keep all the promised F-16s in the country.

“There are a certain number of aircraft that will be stored at secure air bases, outside of Ukraine, so that they are not targeted here,” he said. “And this will be our reserve in case of need for replacement of faulty planes during routine maintenance.”

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has said that the storage abroad of planes or other Ukrainian military assets could “pose a serious danger of NATO being drawn further into the conflict.”

The Biden administration’s approach to arming Ukraine has been driven in large part by concerns about potential escalation with Moscow, which is why it resisted allowing the transfer of F-16s from allies for so long.

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington, said the delay “has given Russia the gift of time.”

“We gave them time to dig in and establish defenses that are now much more difficult to unravel,” he said.

American, Dutch and Danish officials have been working with Ukrainian counterparts to hammer out the details of synchronizing the arrival of the promised aircraft, equipping them with air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions, and thinking through the most efficient and effective use of the initial group of planes, the U.S. and Ukrainian officials said.

After spending some time getting used to the aircraft, General Holubtsov said, the F-16s can be used in the effort to push back the Russian attack planes that have been bombing Ukraine.

General Holubtsov said that F-16s alone would not be enough to drive back the Russian warplanes. They will work in concert with ground-based air defenses like the Patriots, coordinating efforts with a powerful Western information exchange network called Link 16.

The process will take time, he said, and there are a host of factors that could complicate the effort, including Ukraine’s shortage of air-defense systems, which it needs desperately to protect civilian as well as military assets.

But if the Russian planes can be driven further back from the front, the general said, “it can be considered a turning point and a victory — if not superiority, then parity in the air space.”

Dzvinka Pinchuk contributed reporting. Nataliia Novosolova contributed research.