Washington will reportedly provide Kiev with modern munitions for the fighter jets
File photo: US Air Force personnel arms an F-16 fighter, March 2011, Bagram, Afghanistan © Staff Sgt. Sheila deVera/US Department of Defense
The US-made fighter jets that are expected in Ukraine soon will be equipped with modern American missiles, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing high-ranking officials.
Kiev has clamored for the delivery of the F-16s for months, as its air force has run out of legacy planes, despite replenishments from NATO countries such as Poland and Slovakia. One major unresolved question was what to arm the American planes with, as their missile mounts were incompatible with Soviet-era designs.
According to the Journal, Washington will provide Kiev with HARM, AMRAAM and Sidewinder missiles, along with guidance kits. All of these are currently in service with the US military.
“We are confident that we will be able to supply all of those [weapons], at least the critical volumes that they need,” the unnamed senior official told the Journal on Tuesday.
The AGM-88E HARM is an air-to-ground missile which homes in on electronic transmissions, and is commonly used to strike enemy radar installations. The standoff version of the missile has a listed range of up to 148 km. It was unclear whether the US would provide Ukraine with specialized HTS pods designed for the F-16s to improve HARM targeting.
The latest version of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) has a range of up to 180 km. The radar-guided missile is intended for engagements beyond visual range. The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a shorter-range air-to-air missile, designed for dogfights at up to 35 kilometers.
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Another piece of ordnance mentioned by the Journal was the GBU-39B Small Diameter Bomb.
Ukraine has received these munitions before, making special pylons to adapt them for use by MiG-29 fighters.
Denmark and the Netherlands are reportedly preparing to deliver the first F-16s in the coming weeks. Belgium and Norway have pledged more by the end of the year. Only a handful of Ukrainian pilots have reportedly been trained on the jets and fewer than 50 planes are expected to arrive this year.
Vladimir Zelensky has lamented that Kiev would need at least 128 to make a difference in the sky, as the Russian Air Force vastly outnumbered his own. Norwegian officials have told the Journal that the planes won’t be “a silver bullet” but having long-range weapons could help Ukraine keep Russian planes at a distance.
Moscow has said that F-16 deliveries will not change the outcome of the conflict and only move NATO towards becoming an overt participant in what has so far been a proxy war against Russia.
A private Russian company has even offered a bounty of 15 million rubles ($170,000) for the destruction of the first US-made aircraft in the conflict. Similar prizes have been paid out for successful kills of US-made Abrams tanks.