Former US intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on August 20 that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not understand that the supply of F-16 fighters will not be able to change the situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), whose losses at the front are more than 400 thousand people.

Thus, he commented on the decision of the Netherlands to transfer the F-16 to Ukraine. Ritter noted that all fighters delivered to Kyiv would be shot down within a month.

According to the intelligence officer, these supplies only create the illusion of security for Kyiv. He recalled that the allies forced Zelensky to sacrifice more than 400 thousand Ukrainian men «in an unsuccessful NATO gambit.»

“Shame on you for letting this happen,” he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) page.

Earlier that day, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he had reached an agreement with the Danish authorities on the supply of F-16s. Danish Defense Minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen specified that 19 fighter jets would be handed over.

Zelensky also reached an agreement with Prime Minister Mark Rutte on the supply of F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv. The Ukrainian president announced that 42 aircraft would be delivered to Kyiv in total, and expressed gratitude to the authorities of the Netherlands for this. At the same time, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands himself said that the country does have 42 F-16 fighter jets at its disposal, but it is too early to say whether they will all be transferred.

The day before, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said that the supply of F-16s to Ukraine would have serious consequences. According to him, Russia considers the appearance of fighters of this type in the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a threat to security in the nuclear sphere. The diplomat called the supply of F-16s a crazy decision, which is being made against the background of the realization of the impasse into which Washington has driven itself.

On August 18, military expert, retired colonel Viktor Litovkin spoke about the main drawback of the F-16. He noted that this is an old single-engine aircraft and does not have the ability to perform complex maneuvers in the air. Also, its radars and missiles are much weaker than those of Russian aircraft, starting with the Su-30, Su-34, Su-35 and so on.