Kyiv extends a helping hand to Poland. Ukraine has offered Warsaw the necessary assistance in countering Russian drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.
This came after Moscow attacked Poland on 10 September using 19 drones. Only four of them were shot down, despite NATO scrambling its most powerful aircraft, including F-16s and F-35s.
The attack occurred just as Western leaders, including the US, continue working on security guarantees for Ukraine,
Kyiv extends a helping hand to Poland. Ukraine has offered Warsaw the necessary assistance in countering Russian drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.
This came after Moscow attacked Poland on 10 September using 19 drones. Only four of them were shot down, despite NATO scrambling its most powerful aircraft, including F-16s and F-35s.
The attack occurred just as Western leaders, including the US, continue working on security guarantees for Ukraine, aimed at protecting the country from Russian strikes, including drone attacks.
Ukraine without modern aviation — but with results
Ukraine does not possess modern fighter jets, yet during the same time frame, it managed to shoot down380 out of 415 drones launched by Russia.
The question remains: how to force Russia to end the war against Ukraine and stop attacking NATO countries?
“No one can guarantee that there won’t be hundreds of drones if there are already dozens. Only joint European forces can provide real protection. We are ready to help with technology, crew training, and the necessary intelligence,” Zelenskyy stressed.
Dangerous “Zapad-2025” drills
According to Zelenskyy, joint Russian-Belarusian exercises “Zapad-2025” have begun on Belarusian territory, and the attack on Poland may be part of this training scenario.
The program of the drills reportedly includes a rehearsal of an attack on Poland and even the simulation of a nuclear strike.
Despite the attack on a NATO member state, US President Donald Trump did not announce any new sanctions against Moscow or present a clear plan to counter Russia.
“Unfortunately, as of now, Russia has not received a tough response from global leaders to what it is doing,” Zelenskyy said.
According to him, with this attack, Russia is testing the limits of what is possible and probing the West’s reaction.
“They are recording how NATO armed forces act, what they can do and what they cannot do yet,” the Ukrainian president added.
The Ukrainian air force lost important aerial jamming capacity when one of its precious few ex-French Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters crashed on 22 July. Fortunately for the air force, France is likely to at least double the number of supersonic, delta-wing Mirage 2000s it’s giving to Ukraine.
“France will announce that it is giving 20 Mirages instead of 10,” former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Le Monde recently. At least one observer believes France wi
The Ukrainian air force lost important aerial jamming capacity when one of its precious few ex-French Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters crashed on 22 July. Fortunately for the air force, France is likely to at least double the number of supersonic, delta-wing Mirage 2000s it’s giving to Ukraine.
“France will announce that it is giving 20 Mirages instead of 10,” former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba toldLe Monde recently. At least one observer believes France will eventually give Ukraine more than two dozen of the 1980s-vintage, but heavily upgraded, jets.
The first of the single-seat Mirage 2000s arrived in Ukraine in February.
The French air force still flies two squadrons worth of Mirage 2000s—around 26 airframes. But newer Dassault Rafales are gradually replacing the Mirage 2000s, freeing up surplus jets for onward transfer to Ukraine.
The extra planes Kuleba mentioned would soften the blow from the July crash. “An aircraft equipment failure occurred” during an evening training flight, the air force reported at the time. The pilot ejected—and a search team quickly fetched him. “There were no casualties on the ground,” according to the air force.
It was yet another in a series of incidents that have depleted Ukraine’s inventory of newer Western-made warplanes. The service has also lost four of its ex-European Lockheed Martin F-16s since the fighters began flying combat sorties back in August. Three pilots have died.
More Mirage 2000s and F-16s are coming, but we don’t yet know exactly how many—or how fast. France may donate a couple of dozen Mirage 2000s. Meanwhile, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have pledged at least 87 flyable F-16s. It’s possible that around 50 of the F-16s are already in Ukraine or in Romania, where NATO instructors train Ukrainian pilots.
Ukrainian F-16s. Ukrainian air force photo.
Jets without jammers
Between its surviving ex-Soviet Sukhoi Su-24s, Su-25s and Su-27s, Mikoyan MiG-29s and the Mirage 2000s and F-16s, the Ukrainian air force probably still operates 125 or so fighters—roughly as many as it had before Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022.
In all, the Ukrainians have written off nearly 100 jets. To sustain its Soviet-era fleet, the Ukrainian air force has taken delivery of surplus MiG-29s from Slovakia, Poland, and Azerbaijan and excess Su-25s from Croatia. Ukrainian technicians have also restored many grounded airframes and returned them to front-line service.
With the help of their allies, the Ukrainians have upgraded the ex-Soviet jets to carry new precision munitions, including cruise missiles and glide bombs. But the Western jets are even better equipped, especially when it comes to defensive systems.
The Americans have equipped the Ukrainian F-16s with underbelly AN/ALQ-131 electronic countermeasures pods. The AN/ALQ-131 is a new and critical capability for the Ukrainian air force, which entered the wider war in 2022 without an aerial jamming capability. That exposed Ukrainian jets to Russian missile fire—and resulted in heavy losses in the early months of the wider war.
In addition to the AN/ALQ-131s, the F-16s have the option of carrying the Pylon Integrated Dispensing System and the Electronic Combat Integrated Pylon Systems: PIDS and ECIPS.
PIDS ejects metal chaff and hot-burning flares to spoof incoming radar and infrared-guided anti-aircraft missiles. ECIPS houses passive defenses to complement the active chaff and flares, including the AN/ALQ-162 jammer for defeating radars on the ground and an AN/AAR-60 missile warning system for triggering the defenses.
The AN/ALQ-131 in particular can “give you a pocket of air superiority for a moment’s time to achieve an objective that has strategic importance and impact,” a US official explained.
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The Mirage 2000s are similarly equipped with a combination of Serval radar warning receivers, Sabre jammers, and Eclair chaff and flare dispensers. This electronic countermeasures suite was on the cutting edge of aerial warfare in the 1980s, but began to fall behind a generation later.
Recognizing this and appreciating the gravity of the Russian missile threat over Ukraine, the French defense ministry promised to install new electronic countermeasures in the Mirage 2000s before transferring them to Ukraine. It’s likely the ministry was referring to the mostly analogue Integrated Countermeasures Suite Mark 2 or the fully digital Integrated Countermeasures Suite Mark 3.
The Ukrainian air force has been taking full advantage of the F-16s and Mirage 2000s’ ability to fill Russian radar screens with electronic noise. The F-16s “act as ‘flying air defense’ with advanced missile warning tech,” the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team analysis group noted.
The arrival of the first F-16s back in August, and the first Mirage 2000s six months later, allowed the air force to organize complex strike packages mixing ex-Soviet and ex-European jets combining different offensive and defensive capabilities.
“Sometimes when we arrive, there are already F-16s waiting there, or sometimes Mirages,” a Ukrainian fighter pilot said in an official video from March. The F-16s and Mirage 2000s “either cover the whole package that is sent there to [strike] our enemies, or also strike [themselves],” the pilot said.
All that is to say, every F-16 or Mirage 2000 Ukraine loses costs it more than a single airframe. Without the critical jamming capability the ex-Western jets provide, Ukraine’s complex strike packages could unravel.
It’s fortunate, then, that France is poised to hand over more Mirage 2000s.
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A lieutenant colonel flying a U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet was killed during the overnight aerial strike while on duty, the Air Force said on June 29. Russia launched a "massive" missile and drone strike across Ukraine early on June 29, unleashing 537 aerial targets, including 477 drones and 60 missiles, according to the Air Force.. Maksym Ustymenko, born in 1993, was killed after shooting down seven aerial targets, the Air Force said in a statement. The Air Force added that his aircraft was damag
A lieutenant colonel flying a U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet was killed during the overnight aerial strike while on duty, the Air Force said on June 29.
Russia launched a "massive" missile and drone strike across Ukraine early on June 29, unleashing 537 aerial targets, including 477 drones and 60 missiles, according to the Air Force..
Maksym Ustymenko, born in 1993, was killed after shooting down seven aerial targets, the Air Force said in a statement. The Air Force added that his aircraft was damaged while he was trying to shoot down the last one, losing altitude and crashing.
"Maksym Ustymenko did his best to take the plane away from the settlement, but did not have time to eject," the Air Force said on Telegram, honoring that he died "like a hero."
"The work of Ukrainian pilots is extremely dangerous and risky, both when striking enemy ground targets and repelling air attacks," the Air Force added, saying that the F-16 pilots destroy dozens of Shahed-type drones.
In his evening address, President Volodymyr Zelensky posthumously awarded Ustymenko with the Hero of Ukraine award.
"Today, he was killed defending our skies and our people from yet another massive Russian attack... It is painful to lose people like him," Zelensky said in offering condolence to loved ones.
Russia has intensified its aerial campaign on Kyiv and other cities over the past month. Zelensky said that Russia has launched over 2,700, or roughly 9.5%, of the total number of Shahed-type drones deployed during the entire full-scale war in June alone.
Though well protected with Western air defense systems compared to other cities, Kyiv has also faced a number of deadly attacks in June, with the June 17 missile and drone strike on Kyiv killing 30.
The Air Force said that Ukraine had to use "all available means" to repel the Russian aerial attack overnight on June 29, including elite F-16 jets.
Ukraine received its first batch of F-16 jets in the summer of 2024, but it has not revealed many details about how and where they are used in operations since they are a high-priority target for Moscow. Their pilots have received months of training abroad.
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