Vesti published a message on its website under the heading " Bloomberg writes about problems with the transfer of the F-16 to the Ukrainian Armed Forces", which says :
“NATO will not be able to provide the Kyiv regime with new F-16 fighters. At best, Ukraine can count on aircraft that have already been in operation in the air forces of the countries of the alliance.
According to Bloomberg, the supply of used F-16s will significantly reduce the financial burden on the NATO budget, but their maintenance will still cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year. At the same time, old aircraft will last less than new ones.
Even if Ukraine receives a specific commitment from the alliance to supply combat aircraft, they will not have time to take part in the summer counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It will take months to train pilots and overcome logistical difficulties, RIA Novosti writes.
Moreover, the agency emphasized that aircraft alone would not be enough to win the battles with the Russian Aerospace Forces.”
For some reason, Kremlin propagandists have recently been especially willing to distort the content of Bloomberg publications. This time, their attention was drawn to an article by Ian Marlowe and Natalia Drozdyak titled "F-16 Aircraft – A Message to Putin: NATO Support Continues" which reads as follows:
“The F-16s that NATO is sending to Ukraine are unlikely to arrive in time to help Kyiv in the current offensive. Used planes are also not enough to turn the tide in the air war against Russia. The Alliance has a different message in mind.
By providing today's most advanced and expensive weapons, Kiev's supporters will tie the Ukrainian army closer than ever to the bloc, showing Vladimir Putin that he is wrong to think he can defeat them in a conflict.
This is a potentially risky approach. While the Allies have managed to cut initial costs by offering aircraft from their members' existing fleets, keeping obsolete F-16s in the air can cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year – just as pressure is mounting in Europe and the US over the rising cost of further support. Ukraine.
“The big takeaway here is that managing a limited fleet of obsolete aircraft through contractors and maintaining them with contractors is going to be damn expensive,” said Brynn Tannehill of the Rand Corporation in Washington. “This reinforces the idea that the long-term goal is to integrate Ukraine into NATO.” <…>
Of course, maintaining F-16s and other sophisticated weapons, and paying for missiles and other weapons to keep them running, is likely to be much more expensive. The older planes that NATO plans to send will cost less, but they will have a shorter lifespan, as in some cases they have already been flying for decades.”
That is, the article does not say that the new F-16s will not be transferred to Ukraine. It says that it will take a long time, but older aircraft that were in operation will be delivered more urgently. It is also said that the Netherlands and Denmark are creating a training center for pilots and maintenance personnel in Eastern Europe.
