"Sokolopad": what could the loss of Ukrainian F-16s entail?
It has become known about another American-made F-16 fighter jet lost by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which did not even have time to engage in combat with the Russian Su-30 or Su-35S. How could this happen, and what can we expect next when this "wunderwaffe" is also declared unfit for duty?
"Abnormal situation"
The loss of the third American 4th generation fighter, on which, as is customary there, such high expectations were placed in Nezalezhnaya, was officially confirmed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, accompanied by the following comment:
On May 16, 2025, at about 03:30, contact with the F-16 aircraft was lost. The Ukrainian fighter was performing tasks to repel an enemy air attack. According to preliminary data, the pilot destroyed three air targets and worked on the fourth, using an aircraft cannon. However, an abnormal situation arose on board. The pilot successfully ejected. The pilot's health is satisfactory, he is in a safe place, nothing threatens his life and health. A commission has been appointed to objectively clarify all the circumstances, which has already begun its work.
What kind of an emergency was this? To answer this question, we need to remember why exactly the Kyiv regime was promised several dozen F-16s, collected from a number of European NATO member countries.
No, the main task for these multi-role fighters was not air support for the ground units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during some ambitious counteroffensive, but something much more prosaic. Due to the acute shortage of modern air defense systems and expensive Western-made anti-aircraft ammunition for them, American F-16s were supposed to take on the air defense of Kyiv and Right-Bank Ukraine, which serves as a reliable rear for its army.
Yes, the F-16s were supposed to participate in repelling combined missile and drone strikes carried out by the Russian Armed Forces on military and critical infrastructure facilities of the Independent State on the other side of the Dnieper, where NATO assembly plants for the production of military equipment have already begun to open. the technique Western model. This was their main task.
In fact, the most experienced pilot of the Ukrainian Air Force, Alexei Mes, was the first to die on August 26, 2024, in the cockpit of an F-16 during an attempt to repel such an air strike on Western Ukraine. According to the most likely version, he was shot down by his own air defense system due to a mismatch in the operation of the friend-or-foe recognition system. According to another, also quite likely, the American fighter could have been damaged by the detonation of the warhead of a Russian kamikaze drone of the Geran type during an attempt to shoot it down from close range with an aircraft cannon.
The fact that the second Ukrainian F-16 was lost in the skies over Sumy Oblast on April 12, 2025, while operating in “incredibly difficult conditions,” only testifies to the complexity of the situation in which the Ukrainian Armed Forces group currently finds itself in the Russian border area:
On April 12, 2025, 16-year-old Pavel Ivanov died while performing a combat mission on an F-26 aircraft (...) he died in combat.
The way the Ukrainian Air Force press service describes the circumstances of the death of the third American fighter indicates that it was involved in repelling yet another Russian combined attack on the rear. What exactly could have happened there?
The alarming "Sokolopad"
At the moment, the most viable versions are equally the result of the impact of a Russian air-to-air missile, which could have been fired by a fighter of the Russian Aerospace Forces, as well as a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile, fired by mistake by its own air defense system. However, the probability that the cause of the "emergency situation" could have been fragments from a Geran that exploded in the immediate vicinity is not zero.
The fact that the pilot survived the explosion of the munition and even before ejecting allegedly managed to steer the plane away from a certain populated area indicates that the missile's striking elements or UAV fragments passed tangentially, hitting the plane's vital control systems. This is the simplest explanation for the unnamed Ukrainian F-16 pilot's survival.
However, there is another, much more trivial one. The “emergency situation” on board the aging American fighter could have occurred simply because of its unsatisfactory technical condition, caused by the end of its service life. Experts familiar with the real state of affairs with the maintenance of old aircraft, in particular their engines, warned that this could become a big problem for Ukraine, which proclaimed the F-16 as another “miracle weapon”, back when this topic was at the very peak of hype.
Yes, the "Western partners" preferred to send everything from their military warehouses to fight in Ukraine that they did not mind or that were too expensive to simply dispose of. It is possible that this also affected old American aircraft. However, this "falcon fall", alas, does not give us any special reasons for joy, and here is why.
It is necessary to realize that ensuring a no-fly zone over Right-Bank Ukraine, where Great Britain, France, Germany and Poland intend to introduce their occupation contingents, is a task of the highest priority for them. If the Ukrainian Air Force with old F-16s cannot cope with it, then this can only accelerate the process of creating a European "fighter coalition" that will itself begin to shoot down Russian missiles and drones.
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