Missiles, Bombs for Ukrainian F-16s Revealed

The United States has agreed to equip Ukraine's F-16 fighters with American-made missiles.

According to a The Wall Street Journal report published on July 30, F-16 weapons package to Ukraine includes AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles, JDAM kits for precision-guided bombs, GBU munitions, and the latest AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.

While specific transfer details remain undisclosed for security reasons, a U.S. official confirmed that Ukraine will receive sufficient ammunition to meet immediate needs, despite limited Pentagon stockpiles and production capabilities.

Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have committed to shipping more than 60 F-16 jets to Ukraine. Ukraine is expected to receive its first F-16 aircraft this summer, with expectations of six planes by summer's end and up to 20 by year's end.

On July 9, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country needed at least 128 F-16s, and that the ones on the way were too few and are coming too late in the battle. “Even if we will have 50, it’s nothing… They (Russians) have 300… because we are defending, we need 128,” Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian Air Force is already familiar with some of these munitions, having adapted them for use on Soviet-built aircraft.

According to General James B. Hecker, Ukraine has "jerry-rigged" AGM-88 HARM missiles to its Russian-built aircraft, allowing them to target radar sites. However, this adaptation has limitations, and the missiles cannot be dynamically retargeted. F-16s will enable more flexible and precise employment.

“They’re (Ukrainians) just dropping them (weapons) off MiG-29s and Su-24s. Now they’re going to have the opportunity to actually drop them off of an airplane that they were designed to come off of, which will give them more capability to change the targets in flight and things like that,” he said.

The U.S. is presently training Ukrainian pilots and maintainers, with 12 pilots and "dozens" of maintainers to be trained this fiscal year.