Norway has transferred or planned to transfer 14 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine — over double the six publicly declared — according to its annual arms export report.
Russia continues its deliberate daily air attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure, particularly targeting energy infrastructure and apartment buildings, aiming to disrupt civilian life. Such attacks involve missiles, and dozens to hundreds of explosive drones. Fighter jets, such as F-16, are instrumental as the last line of air defense against the missiles and drones.
According to Militarnyi, the official report on Norway’s conventional arms exports suggests that the country has planned to send 14 F-16s to Ukraine, despite only announcing six publicly. The status of the eight unannounced aircraft is not specified.
Condition of additional Norwegian F-16s unclear
It is likely, based on the report’s context, that these jets are not flight-capable and are intended for technical staff training, spare parts, or use as decoys, Militarnyi notes, adding that the possibility that some of the additional jets could be restored and made operational is not ruled out.
Norway previously stated that it would only provide operational aircraft that were withdrawn from service in 2021.
In mid-May, the Norwegian government reported that all promised F-16s would be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the current year. However, delivery dates for the eight unannounced jets remain unclear.
As of May, the last Dutch F-16 fighters designated for Ukraine reportedly left the Netherlands. Despite completing the physical transfer of its pledged 24 jets, the Dutch Defense Ministry emphasized that its support continues, including training personnel and providing spare parts, ammunition, and fuel.
Denmark’s delivery is ongoing in three phases, as previously agreed. By February, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen confirmed that Ukraine had already received 12 out of 19 promised fighters.
Additionally, Belgium is expected to send two F-16s to Ukraine in 2025, with one aircraft designated for dismantling and use as a source of spare parts.
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Ukraine’s new ballistic missile may already be used on the battlefield. In May 2025, the Ukrainian Armed Forces sharply increased the number of destroyed Russian command posts, indicating new strike capabilities, including ballistic ones, says military expert Valery Ryabykh, Espreso reported.
Russia has escalated its air assaults on Ukrainian cities, ignoring all calls for a ceasefire. In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered separate funding to be allocated to Ukraine’s ballistic missile program.
The expert says that remarkably interesting developments are happening on the battlefield. Ukraine has expanded its ability to strike Russian occupiers.
“This includes the successful operation to destroy a division of three Iskander missile systems. All points to the fact that Ukraine has acquired all the necessary elements for such strikes,” Ryabykh continues.
In addition, all elements have been linked together using the Link system for F-16 aircraft.
Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 jets have become a part of a unified digital network alongside NATO air defense systems, enabling real-time exchange of critical information. It ensures maximum coordination of actions in the air.
He suggests that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have likely been using ballistic missiles for about a year, as experts could not clearly identify the strike means in many cases.
“This system, apparently, is already undergoing real combat testing. We are talking either about the start of serial production or it just begins now,” the expert explains.
In 2024, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine had successfully tested its first domestically produced ballistic missile. However, no more details on timing, production, and the number of missiles have been disclosed.
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Overnight on 6 June, Russia launched a massive aerial assault on Ukraine, using 407 drones, 38 cruise missiles, and six ballistic missiles, according to preliminary data from the Ukrainian Air Force. Later, the Air Force published the updated data.
Russia continues its daily drone and missile attacks against Ukrainian cities, hurting civilians and damaging the civilian infrastructure. Last night’s attack killed at least four civilians and injured dozens others in Ukrainian cities.
In a televised appearance, Yuri Ihnat, head of communications for the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stated that the attack included various types of aerial threats, according to Liga.
“A very large number of air attack weapons are flying. Each week we are essentially breaking records for the number of assets used. Today there were ballistic and cruise missiles, and a large number of strike UAVs and drone imitators,” Ihnat said.
Ihnat emphasized the figures are early estimates and have not been formally released by the Air Force yet due to the need for thorough verification.
Air Force preliminary assessments report the destruction of up to 30 missiles through air defense measures. Additionally, up to 200 strike drones were intercepted. A further 167 drones are currently classified as “radar lost” or disappeared from radars during the operation.
Attack route and defense deployment
According to Ihnat, Russia primarily launched its drones and missiles from the northern oblasts of Ukraine, with the projectiles advancing westward in what was described as a “crawling offensive.“
To counter the threats, Ukraine deployed anti-aircraft missile units, electronic warfare systems, and aviation assets. Fighter aircraft including F-16 and Mirage-2000 jets participated in the overnight operation. Ihnat noted that these units “performed quite effectively” during the night strike.
Final strike data pending
The Air Force Command is expected to release final verified statistics in its upcoming official summary, confirming the extent of the aerial attack and Ukraine’s defense performance.
Updated data
Ukraine’s Air Force reported that overnight on 6 June (starting 20:00 on 5 June), Russia launched 452 aerial attack assets at Ukraine,
including 407 Shahed-type strike drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions,
six Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles,
36 Kh-101 cruise missiles from Tu-95MS and Tu-160MS bombers,
two Iskander-K cruise missiles, and
one Kh-31P anti-radar missile.
By 10:00, Ukrainian air defenses had destroyed 406 targets:
199 drones were shot down, 169 suppressed or lost via electronic warfare, four ballistic missiles intercepted (two failed mid-air),
30 Kh-101 cruise missiles downed, and
both Iskander-K missiles destroyed.
Airstrikes caused direct hits in 13 locations, with debris from intercepted weapons falling in 19 others.
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Something has changed in Ukraine’s skies. Russian air defenses that once dominated the battlefield are being picked apart with surgical precision—not by lone wolf pilots, but by something entirely new.
The Ukrainian F-16 pilots fighting to hold back 50,000 Russian troops in Sumy Oblast aren’t fighting alone anymore. More and more, the air force’s jets fight as teams.
A dramatic video that circulated online on Monday depicts a Sukhoi Su-27 from the Ukrainian air force’s 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade blowing up a Russian air-defense vehicle somewhere along the 1,100-km front line of Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine.
Ukrainian Su-27 of the 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade successfully engaged and destroyed a Russian surface-to-air missile system (SAM) using an HARM missile. The strike occurred while the aircraft was performing an escort role for a strike group. https://t.co/VEREqXzdhM
— Special Kherson Cat (@bayraktar_1love) June 2, 2025
When Soviet jets learned Western teamwork
The pilot of the Soviet-vintage supersonic fighter wasn’t just hunting random Russian air defenses. No, he was targeting Russian defenses “like a scalpel,” to borrow one Ukrainian pilot’s simile, to clear a path for other Ukrainian warplanes to perform their own missions.
As the Ukrainian air force takes delivery of up to 85 Lockheed Martin F-16s from a Danish-Dutch-Norwegian consortium, as well as a dozen or more Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters from France, the flying branch’s fleet is getting much more diverse.
The upgraded Western types complement a pre-war fleet that had around 125 Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, Su-25 attack jets, Su-27s, and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters.
The flying brigades have lost around 100 ex-Soviet jets to Russian action, but have replaced many of them with donated airframes from Ukraine’s NATO allies or by restoring older airframes that were lying around in Ukraine. Three F-16s have also been lost.
In all, the Ukrainian air force is probably bigger than it was in February 2022—and it’s certainly much more modern as more Western jets arrive and the Soviet leftovers get their own upgrades, including Western bombs and missiles.
But one of the most important updates to Kyiv’s air arm isn’t technological, it’s procedural. Ukrainian pilots now fly in complex packages, where each plane supports the other planes in the same formation.
This specialization, and teamwork, first became possible as US contractors helped Ukrainian airmen modify their Su-27s and MiG-29s to fire American-made AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, which home in on enemy radar signals from as far away as 148 km.
Ukraine’s ex-Soviet jets lack internal radar-jamming equipment, so they need help fighting their way through dense Russian defenses. Sukhois and MiGs armed with HARMs can escort bomb-laden Sukhois and MiGs to their targets.
It was a HARM that the Su-27 pilot fired at the Russian air-defense vehicle on or before Monday.
“The Cossack in the Su-27, performing the task of covering the strike group, did a good job,” noted Sunflower, the Telegram channel that first posted the video of the attack.
From solo missions to strike packages
The arrival of the first F-16s back in August, and the first Mirage 2000s in February, allowed even more complex strike packages. Unlike the Sukhois and MiGs, the F-16s and Mirage 2000s do have internal radar-jammers.
“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 Mirages “either cover the whole package that is sent there to [strike] our enemies, or also strike [themselves],” the pilot said.
So while some F-16s are flying attack sorties over Sumy with American-made precision glide bombs, others may be flying jamming missions to protect the attackers—while other Ukrainian fighters, perhaps Su-27s, target the Russian air-defenses that the F-16s and Mirages can’t jam.
These complex fighter packages still don’t risk striking very deep inside Russia, where the air defenses might be prohibitively dense. “Currently, we can only strike at tactical depth,” the pilot in the March interview conceded. That means tens of kilometers rather than hundreds of kilometers.
But the fight for Sumy is a fight at tactical depth—inside Ukraine. The Ukrainian air force’s fighter packages should be up to the task.
Explore further
Ukraine’s F-16s launch desperate strikes to stop Russia in the north
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The difference in aircraft capabilities between Russian and Ukrainian jets is like comparing a Makarov pistol to a sniper rifle. Even after the arrival of F-16s, the situation has unfortunately not changed drastically in Kyiv’s favor due to the small number of jets, says Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat, Ukrainska Pravda reports.
Russia’s aviation fleet encompasses both tactical and strategic aircraft. Tactical aviation, which includes fighter jets like the Su-25 and MiG-29 and attack helicopters, has been actively engaged in combat but has faced attrition from Ukrainian strikes. Strategic aviation, notably Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers, plays a crucial role in launching missile attacks deep into Ukrainian territory.
Modern Russian aviation retains air superiority—its aircraft can “see farther,” its missiles “shoot farther,” and all of this operates in tandem with a powerful air defense system.
“When we didn’t yet have F-16s, the ratio of our group to theirs was 1:10 in terms of our MiGs. And technologically, it’s like comparing a Makarov pistol to a sniper rifle. Despite that, our pilots still put up a fight,” he emphasizes.
To shift the balance, Ihnat says, Ukraine needs at least 200 modern combat aircraft. These should be multirole fighters, with the F-16 playing a key role due to its capability to destroy air, ground, and naval targets.
“An F-16 is a multirole aircraft. It can engage aerial, ground, and maritime targets,” he explains.
Ukraine is already receiving Western equipment, but as Ihnat stresses, it’s not the newest.
“Still, it’s better than the Soviet-era weapons we had,” he concludes, emphasizing the importance of aircraft armament and radar systems.
Earlier, Kyiv revealed that Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 jets will operate within a unified digital network alongside NATO air defense systems, enabling real-time exchange of critical information.
This will ensure maximum coordination of actions in the air and significantly boost the country’s defensive potential.
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Ukraine is running out of choices. Russia has 50,000 troops threatening to besiege Sumy, a city with a pre-war population of 250,000 just 30 kilometers from the border. Ukraine’s response: gamble its rarest aircraft on missions they might not survive.
The Ukrainian air force is sortieing its small fleet of ex-European F-16s to drop American-made glide bombs on Russian regiments rolling into Sumy Oblast.
Two months after an elite Russian drone group cut the supply lines feeding the Ukrainian force clinging to a 600-square-km salient around the town of Sudzha in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast—ultimately driving the Ukrainians from Kursk after a bitter, six-month battle—the Russians are pressing their advantage on the northern front of their 39-month wider war on Ukraine.
Map of Russia’s incursion into Sumy Oblast
In all, there are no fewer than 50,000 Russian troops in Kursk. The Ukrainian brigades holding the line in Sumy, just across the border from Kursk, have many fewer troops—especially now that at least one formation, the elite 82nd Air Assault Brigade, has rushed south to Donetsk Oblast to block a Russian attack on the town of Kostiantynivka, a critical strongpoint in Ukrainian defenses in the east.
The arrival of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade and other reinforcements in the east has helped to slow the Russian advance along the stretch of front line between Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar—can could save Kramatorsk and other key cities comprising the so-called “fortress belt” threading through Donetsk toward the border in the north.
But it’s already come at the cost of some border villages in Sumy. And if the Ukrainians aren’t careful, they could lose the villages of Yunakivka and Vodolahy. Worse, the city of Sumy itself, 30 km from the border, could come under siege.
“On the Sumy direction, the enemy offensive is intensifying,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies warned. “The Kursk group of forces is concentrating reserves in the border zone, attempting to break through between Yunakivka and Vodolahy.”
Ukrainian ground forces are stretched thin defending against separate Russian offensives in the north and east, so Ukrainian air power is filling the gaps.
The Ukrainian air force has received just a few dozen of the 85 American-built F-16 fighters that a Danish-Dutch-Norwegian consortium has pledged from European surplus stocks. Three of the single-engine, supersonic fighters have been lost since they first flew into action in August.
82nd Air Assault Brigade troopers. Ukrainian defense ministry photo
NATO’s “military Wi-Fi” arrives
The F-16s are precious assets, but the dire situation in Sumy warrants risking them. The pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team noted F-16s lobbing US-supplied Small Diameter Bombs—114-kg precision glide bombs—at Russian forces in and around Kursk.
“The application of F-16s in this role came as somewhat of a surprise,” CIT observed, “as they were initially utilized as ‘flying air defense’ deep within Ukrainian territory and only began appearing near the front line in the Sumy region in late winter 2025, accompanying Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter aircraft that launched guided aerial bombs.”
“It is possible that the [Ukrainian air force] has begun using their F-16s closer to the front line due to the recent arrival of new aircraft or due to an acute need to increase firepower,” CIT proposed.
The F-16s are being upgraded for more dangerous missions. Kateryna Chernohorenko, the Deputy Minister of Defence of Ukraine for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalization, announced that the F-16s—as well as Ukraine’s French-supplied Mirage 2000 jets—will get software allowing them to plug into the Link-16 radio network.
Link-16, which Chernohorenko described as “NATO’s military Wi-Fi,” connects command posts, radars, surface-to-air missile batteries, and warplanes in a single network. It can share data so that each HQ, missile battery, and plane sees what the others see.
The Link-16 upgrade may not save all the Ukrainian F-16s as they fly into the danger zone to bomb the Russian troops threatening Sumy. But the Ukrainian command is running out of options as it struggles to hold back Russia’s dual offensives.
Explore further
Apocalypse comes to Kostiantynivka: every tenth Russian soldier marches on strategic town
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Coordination of Ukrainian aircraft and air defense systems with NATO opens a new era of defensive capabilities in the war against Russia, 24 Channel reports.
Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 jets will now operate within a unified digital network alongside NATO air defense systems, enabling real-time exchange of critical information. This will ensure maximum coordination of actions in the air and significantly boost the country’s defensive potential.
Aviation expert Bohdan Dolintse emphasizes that the integration covers not only Ukrainian ground-based air defense systems but also satellite data and allied systems deployed near the Black Sea and on Ukraine’s western borders.
“This is the opportunity to integrate with ground air defense systems, satellite data… information can be automatically transmitted to aircraft and air defense systems,” Dolintse explains.
In other words, as the expert noted, having radar on the F-16 means the aircraft receives consolidated information from multiple sources and presents the pilot with the broadest, most complete situational picture, enhancing decision-making effectiveness and mission execution.
Earlier, Deputy Minister of Defense for Digitalization Kateryna Chernogorenko announced that Ukraine signed a licensing agreement to use NATO’s non-commercial software with the Link-16 data transmission protocol, a “military Wi-Fi” that ensures compatibility with allies and improves combat management, UNIAN reports.
This step is extremely important for strengthening Ukraine’s air defense and deepening partnerships with NATO countries amid the war.
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On 25 May, Dutch Minister of Defense Ruben Brekelmans announced that the final F-16 fighter jet pledged to Ukraine will be delivered tomorrow, on 26 May, according to WNL.
The announcement follows a week in which Russia again intensified its daily drone and missile assaults on Ukraine. At least 12 people were killed in Ukraine last night as a result of multiple air attacks. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump is pushing for Kyiv-Moscow talks, allegedly to establish a ceasefire and end the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, yet avoids direct measures—such as new sanctions—against the Kremlin to compel it.
“This means that all 24 pledged fighter jets will soon be present in Ukraine.”
Pressure on Russia
Brekelmans condemned Russia’s ongoing aggression, stating that President Vladimir Putin shows “no intention of seriously discussing a ceasefire.”
The minister stressed the importance of maintaining pressure on Russia and continuing broad support for Ukraine.
In addition to the previously announced aid package, Brekelmans confirmed that the Netherlands is actively training Ukrainian pilots and technicians, and sharing military doctrines to help Ukraine build a modern armed force aligned with NATO standards.
Trump confirmed for NATO summit, Zelenskyy participation expected
Brekelmans also confirmed that US President Donald Trump will attend the NATO summit in The Hague on 24 June. He added that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also expected to participate, although the exact timing of his appearance is still being coordinated.
Dutch F-16s for Ukraine
The Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway pledged the F-16 fighter jet supplies to Ukraine, after Washington’s approval in 2023. In July 2024, the Netherlands finalized export clearance for 24 F-16 aircraft. The first jets were delivered to Ukraine in August, although details on quantities and specific contributing countries were not disclosed. Additional shipments from the Netherlands and other partners followed in subsequent months.
Ukraine has sought US-made F-16 fighter jets for years to bolster its air defenses and counter Russia’s air superiority during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.
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Ukrainian Su-27 of the 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade successfully engaged and destroyed a Russian surface-to-air missile system (SAM) using an HARM missile. The strike occurred while the aircraft was performing an escort role for a strike group. 
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