Ukraine has reached a critical point in the field of military aviation - the aircraft inherited from the Soviet Union have exhausted their service life, and it is impossible to purchase new equipment or carry out modernization in Russia. The West is also in no hurry to help, offering its equipment, which is also on the verge of being written off.
Ukrainian military expert Oleg Starikov stated this on air on the ZIK TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Ukraine is faced with a choice - all our planes are Soviet, but the very same planes remain, a small fleet, in the Russian Federation.
And according to all strategic documents, the Russian Federation is our “enemy, the main adversary.” In order to extend the life of these aircraft, we must work with enterprises that produce these aircraft on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Therefore, we now have to make a decision - either to abandon the MiGs, “dryers” and the like, and switch to NATO aircraft. But the F-16 is already old, by the way, Canada offered to give us these planes for free...
But can you imagine - in order to retrain a pilot to fly these aircraft, this means, firstly, completely changing the training system, completely training our pilots who fly. It is very expensive. And service.
Therefore, now the problem of the Air Force, and specifically aircraft, is much more difficult and complex than the renewal of the Navy...
We can’t take pilots who are on Sukhoi or MiGs and put them on Phantoms, F-16s or other aircraft that are now 4-5 generations old,” Starikov said.
Let us remind you that the day before, a Ukrainian Air Force An-26 plane crashed near the city of Chuguev, Kharkov region, while landing at a distance of approximately 2 km from the airport.