The gut-wrenching loss of an Ukraine Air Force F-16 chasing Iranian-made drones at low altitude last week is proof positive that Ukraine’s air force is becoming more aggressive and capable. But there’s a sober combat lesson here for the U.S. vs. China. The daily air battles against missiles and drones over Ukraine are only a taste of what U.S. bases and allies could experience in the event of Chinese attacks.
This I can tell you. Almost certainly, the pilot, identified as Col. Alexei "Moonfish" Mes, was being very aggressive in defense of his homeland. Russia had launched an attack on Ukraine with 127 missiles and 109 one-way attack drones on Aug. 26. Mes had already taken out several, reported as three cruise missiles and a drone, expending four or more weapons from his jet.
"The loss of a pilot is incredibly painful to bear, especially as he was among those who fought for Ukraine’s right to have F-16 aircraft," Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, a pilot and former Ukrainian Air Force officer, told the New York Times on Saturday.
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Mes still had weapons available, and several hundred rounds in the F-16’s 20mm Gatling gun. The Shahed 136 drones, for example, fly at about 115 mph and relatively low, making them enticing, vulnerable targets for skilled fighter pilots. The risks go up for pilots as they continue to engage at lower altitudes. Target fixation can overtake caution in these intense moments; imagine the pressure when the missiles are heading for civilians, for your countrymen.
Tragic as it was, the loss of this F-16 fighting hard in Ukraine also shows it is Russia and China who should be worried. Here’s why.
First, with F-16s, Ukraine’s air force is becoming more aggressive and capable. Mes praised the F-16’s sophisticated avionics in an interview last November. "[The] F-16 is very maneuverable. It encourages you to pilot in an aggressive style," he told an interviewer.
The insider view from long Air Force experience is that crashes like this are often a marker of growing combat prowess across the force, as top pilots push the F-16 to its limits. The U.S. Air Force lost 15-20 F-16s per year when the F-16 was new. And that was in training, not combat.
The U.S. and NATO are committed to air power for Ukraine, finally, and past caring about Putin’s warnings about escalation. Note that this was a very capable F-16, tuned up by the U.S. Air Force’s elite 68th Electronic Warfare Squadron. Last month, the squadron said it reprogrammed the electronic warfare subsystems for Ukraine’s F-16s to counter the evolving Russian jamming and spoofing.
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President Volodomyr Zelenskyy fired Ukraine’s air force commander after the incident. Again, not unusual. Firing the commander galvanizes accountability. The most professional air forces do it routinely.
Of course, it’s still shocking to me that dilatory decision-making by President Biden’s team delayed the arrival of the first handful of F-16s until August 2024. But now there’s no going back. Ultimately, Ukraine’s Air Force will have between 60-80 F-16s supplied via NATO partners who have decided to ignore Putin’s rantings and threats.
"Providing those jets, we see it as important to protect Ukraine from further escalation from Russia," Mes said last year. Ukraine’s willingness to use – and lose – F-16s in combat strengthens the country’s defenses. The specific combat lessons from Ukraine will apply to future tactics.
For China, it’s a matter of tactics and deterrence. China could put hundreds of drones and missiles in the air in waves of attacks around a Pacific island ally. As China grows more formidable, there’s a trend towards believing that the U.S. Air Force will only "stand off" with long-range weapons and bombers, leaving the close-in fight to drones. Don’t count on it.
In just one month of operations, Ukraine’s bare handful of F-16s have shown that the latest tactics call for getting in close to go after drones and missiles. The scenarios differ, but the U.S. and allies are getting a fair amount of tactical feedback from Ukraine. The reality is that Air Force planners in the Pacific are preparing for a hard fight with bases under heavy attacks, of a type not seen since World War II. In the imperative to deter China, every combat lesson from Ukraine will help.
Senior U.S. officials said earlier this month that they did not believe the F-16 was lost to "friendly fire" from Ukrainian air defenses during the melee. Still, Ukraine’s air force will investigate.
Airmen don’t speculate before the full investigation is complete, and I guarantee you this is one mishap report that will be avidly followed by NATO airmen from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C.Q. Brown, himself an F-16 pilot, on down to every jet pilot from Finland to Turkey and beyond.
