Only 6 instead of 22: Norway announces number of F-16s for Ukraine

Defense Express information and consulting company writes about this.

Ukraine's Air Force will receive six F-16 fighter jets from Norway, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre announced. He also added that the delivery of the aircraft would begin in 2024.

Thus, Norway, which decommissioned all F-16s in 2022, became the smallest donor of these aircraft to Ukraine. For example, Denmark is donating 19 aircraft, Belgium - 30, and the Netherlands - 24.

“And it is worth noting that Norway has never officially announced how many aircraft could be transferred. In unofficial estimates, figures of up to 22 F-16s were mentioned. But then it was immediately noted that not all of these machines were in good condition and some of them would be used for spare parts. Therefore, in August 2023, Jonas Gahr Støre noted that it was likely to be less than 10 aircraft,” the report notes.

In April 2024, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide still kept the exact number of F-16s for Ukraine secret, confirming that only a part of the available machines were in operational condition, and some were already "fuselages" that could only be used to repair other aircraft.

In addition, in January 2024, Norway officially announced the transfer of two F-16s for training Ukrainian pilots, which were to be deployed at the Danish air base of Skrydstrup in the spring and summer of this year.

And the fact that only six of the 22 allegedly available aircraft in Norway are in combat condition, and two more are only used for training, is quite natural. After all, the Norwegian machines were decommissioned two years ago, and as of 2022, there were only 57 units, Defense Express explains.

However, Romania bought 32 of the used fighters as a result of negotiations that lasted almost a year until November 2022. And of course, Bucharest immediately selected the best and freshest aircraft.

Only a fraction of the remaining 12 Norwegian F-16s were claimed by Draken International, a private company that trains pilots, and therefore the planes would have been demilitarized for the company anyway. It should be noted that this agreement was canceled.

So, Defense Express believes that the problem is no longer that Norway is transferring only six F-16s, but that only six F-16s are in a condition that allows for combat operations two years after they were decommissioned.