The United States will never send its fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter jets to Ukraine because of their high cost and the inevitability that these machines will be shot down and studied by the Russian military. This was stated by National Interest magazine columnist Harrison Cass.
“The F-35 will inevitably be shot down. The F-35 being shot down will give Russia an opportunity to study the fighter’s technology. <…>. Any technical information about the F-35 will be a victory for Russia,” writes Harrison Cass.
The author believes that Washington fears that untrained Ukrainian pilots will only increase the losses of the advanced aircraft. In addition, the F-35 will turn out to be an extremely expensive fighter jet for Kiev.
According to the Observer, the Lightning fighter model is “very expensive” and “costs twice as much” as the F-16 fighters. The programme to produce the new fighter jet cost the Pentagon $1.7 trillion and is considered the most expensive weapons programme in human history. Kass is convinced that providing Ukraine with fundamentally new weapons systems may not be in the interests of the USA
“American taxpayers, tired of the third year to finance another state, are unlikely to support the transfer of the aircraft for a hundred million dollars, out of the military programme for 1.7 trillion dollars”, – summarises the author.
Earlier, retired German army colonel and military expert Wolfgang Richter expressed in an interview with Welt that the Russian army would destroy the F-16 fighter jets if the West decided to supply them to Ukraine.