Ukraine needs F-16s 'now' as Putin exhausted from war, says former Ukrainian President

In order to counter Russia's powerful aerial assaults on Ukrainian soil, Ukraine's former president who led the country from 2014 to 2019 is demanding the "game-changer" F-16 fighter jets to launch a counter-offensive against the invading Russian troops. President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, has been "exhausted" from the war, Ukraine's ex-president Petro Poroshenko said in an interview with Newsweek, and hence, Ukraine's Air Force quickly needs F-16s to attack the Russian aircraft that have been conducting airstrikes on the civilian infrastructures in order to avoid the conflict from dragging into 2023. 

Poroshenko, who also faces treason charges, informed that he had mulled an informal truce with Russia to put an end to the war and that treason charges were in fact "politically motivated." Ukraine's ex-leader stated that the advanced weapons supply by European Union and NATO nations has proven to be useful in Ukraine's resistance. This includes US-supplied HIMARS that helped the Ukraine armed forces to strike several Russian military targets. 

“I think we definitely need to end the war before the end of the year," Poroshenko told Newsweek. "That's why we don't have a year to supply F-16s and two years to supply Patriots. We should talk about days. Because a year, or years, can completely change the whole situation in Europe. It is completely dangerous for the whole world," he added. 

Russian Air Force incurred heavy losses

The UK had earlier said in its intelligence update that Moscow has incurred heavy losses of the fighter jets and that its defence ministry was now employing retired pilots for air combat manoeuvres in Ukraine.  It cited the mounting death toll of the Russian fighter pilots as a reason behind the lack of Moscow's show of tremendous air power.

Aviation experts have blamed Ukraine's West-supplied anti-aircraft missiles like the Stinger and Igla which they say are a major threat to the Russian pilots flying above Kyiv's skies. And therefore, the VKS, the acronym for Russia’s Air Force, has been underperforming as it is forced to carefully operate in a risk [averse] style of flying at low altitudes, which puts their fighter jets in the lethal envelope of shoulder-fired man-portable air defence systems [MANPADs].

Moscow’s air power hasn’t been able to "gain full air superiority” and has had a "very limited campaign success” owing to its strategy of avoiding penetrating forward inside the Ukrainian borders, the UK defence ministry said. "For years, much of Russia's air combat training has highly likely been heavily scripted and designed to impress senior officials, rather than to develop dynamic initiative amongst aircrews,” it stressed.