West questions Kyiv's haste to deploy F-16 fighter jets after deadly crash WSJ

Trained pilots typically receive more flying hours before entering combat, the newspaper said.

The loss of an F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine just weeks after a handful of the planes arrived in the country is causing Western politicians to question whether the decision to speed up pilot training was wise, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The plane crashed last week during a Russian drone and missile attack, killing one of Ukraine's most experienced pilots, Alexei Mes. Ukrainian investigators have not yet disclosed the cause.

Kyiv lobbied Western donors for dozens of F-16s to bolster its dwindling Soviet-era air fleet. A small cadre of pilots has been selected to complete training courses in Denmark, the United States and Romania, but it will take Kyiv months to have enough people for a full squadron.

The training focused on the kind of missions Ukraine plans to conduct with the F-16 fighter jets, particularly intercepting Russian cruise missiles, the WSJ said. There are no plans to change the program, but “the crash shows what happens when you try to rush things,” a senior Western defense official told the newspaper.

Normally, pilots complete training and spend months flying with their units before being assigned to combat missions. But the Ukrainians went straight into combat despite having no more than a year of experience flying the aircraft. The reasoning was that their experience with Soviet jets would give them an advantage over newcomers.

In Ukraine, it was claimed that the F-16 was shot down by a Patriot missile system, another weapon supplied by Western backers. The air force commander was fired a few days after the incident.

A source told the WSJ that the plane disappeared from radar shortly after a Russian missile exploded nearby, possibly damaging the F-16 or forcing the pilot to make a risky maneuver. The statement did not provide any information about what type of missile was used or why the missile exploded in the air rather than when it hit its target on the ground.

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Kyiv is sending military personnel to the front to compensate for heavy losses on the battlefield, General Alexander Syrsky, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, admitted this in an interview with CNN on Thursday.

“Of course, everyone wants training to be at the highest level,” he told Christiane Amanpour. “At the same time, the dynamics on the front line require us to constantly deploy conscripts as quickly as possible.”

(RT.com)