Ukraine needs to target Russian air defenses in occupied territories and rear for F-16 deployment – ISW

According to experts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Ukrainian Defense Forces must prioritize targeting enemy air defense in the Russian rear and temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories in order to make use of the newly arrived F-16 fighter jets, using long-range weaponry provided by the West.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports this.

Ukraine announced that it received the first batch of American-made F-16 fighter jets.

On August 4, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the arrival of F-16 aircraft in Ukraine.

In this regard, he especially thanked Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States.

"ISW continues to assess that Ukraine will need a substantial number of F-16 jets in order to field them at the scale necessary for Ukraine to succeed in integrating fixed wing aircraft into its wider air defense umbrella.

Ukraine will also notably need to continue efforts to target Russian air defense assets within the Russian rear and in occupied Ukraine with Western-provided long-range weapons to enable its use of F-16 jets," the report reads.

Analysts note that a group of Russian military bloggers has responded to the arrival of the F-16s by downplaying their potential impact on the battlefield. This directly undermines Russian efforts to portray the delivery of the F-16s and other Western weapons as a "red line" that should not be crossed.

Several such bloggers said that Western and Ukrainian media were "bloating" the arrival of the F-16s to distract attention from battlefield failures, and many Russian bloggers immediately moved to discuss how Russian forces would begin targeting and destroying the planes.

Commentators and officials in the Russian information space have often stated that the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine is a "red line", crossing which will force Russia to resort to escalation in response.

However, experts note, Russia has repeatedly proven that the reference to the alleged "red lines" is a reflexive management technique designed to force the West to withdraw from providing additional military aid to Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the war, Western and Ukrainian politicians have repeatedly crossed the self-defined "red lines" of the Russian Federation, without causing a significant reaction from the federation, which, judging by the comments of Russian "military" bloggers, will also happen in the case of the Russian response to the delivery of F-16 aircraft.

ISW Key Findings as of August 4:

• According to reports, on August 4,Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted drone strikes against an oil depot in the Rostov region and missile strikes against fuel storage warehouses in occupied Luhansk City.
• Ukraine confirmed that it has received the first batch of US-made F-16 fighter jets.
• Russian milbloggers responded to the arrival of F-16s by trying to downplay their potential battlefield effects—directly undermining Russian information operations intended to frame the delivery of F-16s and other Western weapons systems as an uncrossable "red line."
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances east of Pokrovsk, west of Donetsk City, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia regions border area.
• The Russian defense industry reportedly continues to produce missiles using Western-sourced components.

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It should be noted that Ukrainian F-16 fighter jets were equipped with early warning systems for missile attacks.