According to an official Ukrainian military press release, Ukraine’s steadily growing fleet of F-16 fighters, which were first deployed in late July/early August 2024, has undertaken more than 1300 successful aerial interceptions of Russian strike munitions. The F-16 can only target Russian cruise missiles and fixed-wing propeller-driven strike drones and decoy drones, which notably fly over Ukrainian airspace at a low altitude, in a context in which Russian crewed combat aircraft are understood to almost always operate well within the airspace on the Russian side of the frontline/international border. As a result, Ukrainian fighter aircraft, including the F-16, primarily undertake rear area air defence sorties in which the threat posed by long-range Russian R-37 air-to-air missiles and the 40N6 and 48N6 surface-to-air missiles is more limited, especially when Ukrainian fighter aircraft are flying at medium and low altitudes to intercept low-flying Russian strike drones, decoy drones, and cruise missiles.
According to the press release, Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighters—the latter is deployed in much smaller numbers than the F-16—successfully intercepted at least 10 of the 47 cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched from the night of 18 November 2025 through the morning of 19 November 2025. According to the Ukrainian military, Russia launched a non-disaggregated total of 476 Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones, as well as unarmed/minimally armed Gerbera propeller-driven fixed-wing decoy drones in that timeframe alongside 47 subsonic land-attack cruise missiles. According to the Ukrainian military, a non-disaggregated total of 442—92.8%—of the aforementioned strike and decoy drones were either successfully intercepted by Ukrainian air defences or neutralized by electronic warfare capabilities, while 41 of the 47—87.2%—land-attack cruise missiles were successfully intercepted.
Given the above figures, Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighters would appear to have intercepted just 2.07% of the total number of strike drones, decoy drones, and cruise missiles Ukraine claims to have intercepted or neutralized from the night of 18 November 2025 through the morning of 19 November 2025, but 24.3% of the cruise missiles that Ukraine claims to have intercepted. This is not surprising given how Russian cruise missiles are likely to avoid needlessly transiting areas with the known concentrations of Ukrainian radar-guided surface-to-air missile systems. Without a very dense and robust forward “line” of ground-based air defence systems to intercept all cruise missiles, which is essentially unfeasible in the military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War, low-flying subsonic Russian cruise missiles are likely to penetrate Ukraine’s quite porous air defences over distances of several hundred kilometers before reaching their intended targets, which are likely to be protected by short- and medium-range air defence systems, inclusive of anti-aircraft artillery and shoulder-launched short-range surface-to-air missiles. Fighter aircraft such as the F-16 and Mirage 2000 are likely to be playing a critically important role in extending rear area air defence capabilities over a large surface area, such as Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River, by offering a means of intercepting cruise missiles that leak through Ukraine’s porous air defences.
While pre-transfer discussions of the implications of the transfer of F-16 fighters to Ukraine typically discussed how the combination of F-16 fighters and later model AIM-120 long-range air-to-air missiles would allow Ukraine to ambush Russian fighter aircraft launching UMPK and UMPB guided glide bombs over standoff distances of 40 or more kilometers from the frontlines/international border, rear area air defence was always a role for which the relatively outdated F-16 fighters, as well as the Mirage 2000 fighters, that Ukraine has received are far more suited. Rear area air defence against cruise missiles and propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones and decoy drones, which do not evade fighter aircraft, rarely feature any countermeasures, and cannot fight back against the likes of the F-16 or even a Second World War vintage fighter aircraft, is a very productive undertaking for older crewed combat aircraft designs in a context in which the Russian fighter, strike, and attack aircraft, let alone bomber aircraft, are understood to have almost never operated beyond the frontlines since the opening weeks of the Russia-Ukraine War. All things considered, Ukraine would get a lot of mileage by operating even older radar-equipped MiG-21 and F-5 fighter aircraft, but the much newer F-16 fighters that Ukraine has received, which are decades old but nevertheless underwent a fairly comprehensive mid-life upgrade for their former operators, are a much more capable design. It bears emphasis that much the same dynamic concerning rear area air defence in the Russia-Ukraine War can be seen in the area of surface-to-air missile technology, where even decades-old systems such as the American HAWK remain very well-suited to intercepting Russian cruise missiles, strike drones, and decoy drones even though these are not very competitive if used against Russian fighter aircraft from launch positions close to the frontlines/international border.
One of the less discussed capability gains accrued to Ukraine as a result of the transfer of F-16 fighters concerns its ground attack capabilities. According to the Ukrainian military, Ukraine’s F-16 fighters have struck more than 300 ground targets over an unspecified timeframe. Given prior Ukrainian disclosures, the vast majority of sorties undertaken, presumably including F-16 sorties, are air-to-air sorties, and the figure of over 300 ground targets attacked is likely to be reflective of the total number of air-to-ground sorties undertaken since late July/early August 2024. Ukraine’s F-16 fighters are capable of launching up to eight GBU-39 bombs per sortie, a quite small and light but nevertheless potent American guided glide bomb design that can be quite safely launched against battlefield targets, given its considerable standoff range of at least several dozen kilometers. There is no magic in the world of fighter aircraft operations, and Ukrainian F-16s and their pilots and maintainers can only fly for so many hours per day, week, and month. With air-to-air sorties being prioritized, above all to undertake patrols so as to intercept Russian subsonic land-attack cruise missiles that can quickly fly through the coverage of the bulk of Ukraine’s shorter-range and often rudimentary air defences, there are necessarily fewer opportunities for Ukraine’s F-16s to carry and launch air-to-ground munitions. The F-16 fighters that Ukraine has received are, in most respects, better suited to undertaking air-to-air sorties than Ukraine’s residual fleet of Soviet-built MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters, which are seemingly now being heavily used in air-to-ground sorties as more F-16 fighters become available to undertake air-to-air sorties.
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