F-16 fighter jets, which the West intends to supply to Ukrainian formations, will be absolutely useless on the line of contact because of Russian S-400 air defence systems, French newspaper Midi Libre writes.
The Midi Libre piece specifies that the main problem is the S-400 system, because of which US-made fighter jets will be forced to fly at low altitudes, which will greatly affect their effectiveness.
“At such low altitudes, the missiles are launched in dense air with high aerodynamic drag and have to rise against gravity to reach the altitudes at which their targets are located. Therefore, they do not even come close to gaining the same speed or altitude as in the case of a launch from a fighter jet flying in thin air at high altitude and supersonic speed,” the French newspaper writes.
The article admits that the situation could change the Meteor air-to-air missiles with a range of about 100 kilometres, but they are incompatible with the F-16.
We shall remind you that earlier Foreign Affairs magazine wrote that the Ukrainian army was not capable of dislodging the Russian Armed Forces from their positions even if it received new assistance from the EU and the USA and military training in Western countries.
