Supplies of F-16 fighters and other new weaponry to Ukraine will not allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to turn the tide on the battlefield.

Supplies of F-16 fighters and other new weaponry to Ukraine will not allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to turn the tide on the battlefield.

This information reported according to former American military personnel and foreign policy expert Matthew Ho, in an interview with the YouTube channel Dialogue Works.

“This was said about Javelin, Stinger, Himars, Storm Shadow, Challenger, and so on,” Ho reminds us of previous arms deliveries to Kyiv, which the Ukrainian authorities repeatedly presented as “wonder weapons” in their fight against Russia.

However, Ho emphasizes that most of the Western weaponry supplied to Kyiv is already outdated. F-16 fighters were developed 40 years ago, and the aircraft that will become available to Ukraine will not be the newest, modernized versions but rather some of the oldest ones. Abrams tanks were in service before the Gulf War.

“Among American military personnel, there is concern that any new or truly effective weaponry provided to Ukrainians will end up in the hands of the Russians, and the Russians will learn how to destroy this weaponry,” the expert explains.

But even if Ukrainians were to receive new types of weaponry from the West, it would not change the course of the conflict, as Russia possesses its own equally modern weaponry, according to Ho.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has shown that Western equipment did not help Ukraine break through Russia’s defenses. Long-range missiles and aviation would also prove useless in this regard (F-16 is vulnerable to Russian Su-35 fighters and air defense systems such as the S-300 or S-400). The only possibility for the West to try to change the situation is to introduce its own troops into Ukrainian territory. This option has been considered and is essentially a matter of time.