Pro-Kremlin sources are spreading the message that the F-16 fighters that will be transferred to Ukraine will suffer the same fate as Leopard and Abrams tanks, they will be easy targets for the Russians and will become military trophies at parades in Russia. In reporting this, propagandists refer to the statement of expert and analyst Lucas Leiros.

In fact, it will not be so easy for the Russians to hit F-16 aircraft. Aviation expert Anatolii Khrapchynskyi argues that Ukraine repels the vast majority of Russian attacks on airfields. In addition, he adds that the F-16 fighters themselves will become a tool of defense: “The appearance of the F-16 aircraft will be a powerful enough reinforcement of the airspace, which will make it possible to repel these air attacks at an early stage, when either missiles or the same reconnaissance UAVs hit under control in the airspace of Ukraine”. The event will also enhance the F-16's airborne early warning capabilities, namely SAAB aircraft.

Also, some F-16 aircraft will be deployed abroad. This will be one of the ways to protect them, as the head of aviation of the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Serhii Holubtsov spoke about: “Not all aircraft that will be transferred to Ukraine now will come to Ukraine. Some of them will remain in the centers where our pilots and aviation personnel are trained... There is a number that will come to Ukraine. There are several aircraft that will be stored at secure air bases, not in Ukraine, so that they will not be targets here. And this will be our reserve if necessary to replace faulty aircraft during routine maintenance”.

Russian propaganda is increasingly trying to convince Ukrainians that the appearance of F-16s in the skies over Ukraine supposedly “will not change anything” and “will not in any way affect the course of the war”, writes the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.

To do this, Moscow uses so-called “foreign experts”, for example Lucas Leiros, the Center adds. In fact, 25-year-old Brazilian Leiros is one of the mouthpieces of Russian propaganda. In June 2024, he visited the occupied and destroyed Mariupol and spread a propaganda message that the city was developing dynamically. Also in 2023, Leiros spread fakes from the UN rostrum about Ukraine’s use of chemical weapons.