Ukraine Is Getting F-16s. Now It Needs Cruise Missiles.

Denmark and The Netherlands together have pledged to Ukraine 61 surplus Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighters.

As they arrive in Ukraine over the next six months, the nimble supersonic jets could replace half of the Ukrainian air force’s existing arsenal of 40- and 50-year-old MiG and Sukhoi fighters and bombers. Alternatively, the air force could grow its front-line fleet by half, flying the 61 F-16s alongside approximately 125 old Soviet-made planes.

Either way, it’s what the American-designed F-16s can carry that matters the most as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 19th month: modern air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles plus precision-guided bombs—all of which extend the striking range of Ukrainian warplanes, allowing them to pluck at Russian positions deep in occupied territory without exposing Kyiv’s pilots to the most dangerous Russian air-defenses.

Ukraine already has received from its foreign allies a wide array of modern munitions. Technicians have modified the Ukrainian air force’s Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 fighters and Sukhoi Su-24 bombers to carry these munitions—and they could arm the air force’s ex-Danish and ex-Dutch F-16s, too. As a bonus, the F-16 can access all of the munitions’ best features, which the old ex-Soviet planes can’t always do.

But the missile that might make the most difference, the Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missile—a two-ton stealthy cruise missile with a 230-mile range—still is on Kyiv’s wish list. Unless and until the United States approves the JASSM for transfer to Ukraine, Ukrainian F-16s will fly short of their full potential.

“There remains a long road ahead before the F-16s would see service in Ukraine—and it is an open question how much they would affect the outcome of the war,” Brynn Tannehill, an analyst for the RAND Corporation in California, explained in a May commentary.

At present, a small force of modified Su-24M/MR bombers—flown by the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade operating from airfield in Starokostiantyniv in western Ukraine—represents the Ukrainian air force’s main aerial deep-strike force. Firing British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles and SCALP cruise missiles from France, the Su-24s can strike Russian troops and logistical nodes as far away as 155 miles.

The F-16 isn’t yet compatible with the Storm Shadow or SCALP, but it is compatible with the JASSM. Pairing F-16s with JASSMs, the Ukrainian air force could double its deep-strike force. The expansion of the Ukrainian air force’s cruise-missile force might help Kyiv to achieve one of its main objectives: the liberation of the Crimean Peninsula from nine years of Russian occupation.

Ten weeks ago, Ukrainian ground forces launched a major counteroffensive along several axes in southern and eastern Ukraine. The goal of the southern efforts—currently focused on the Robotyne-Tokmak-Melitopol axis as well as on the Mokri Yaly River Valley—is to drive Ukrainian brigades the 50 miles or so from the current front line to the Black Sea, and sever Russia’s ground lines of communication into Crimea.

F-16s shooting JASSMs could achieve the same thing, at a much lower cost in Ukrainian lives. “F-16s loaded with JASSM could be critical to Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov’s stated long-term plan to re-take Crimea ‘without a fight,’” Tannehill wrote.