It will only be a decent fight if those F-16s are Vs and come with AIM-120D. They need to be in numbers too, not just 4 or 6 jets, but 4-6 squadrons.
Don't expect much here. It won't set new standards, it's only meant to give Ukraine the chance to make use of a fighter jet's speed once in a while. It acts as a deterrent for protecting their own HQs.
The F-16s will not fly over and bomb Russia's territory, they will remain in the contact zone and will be equipped with ammunition to strike far. When we see the Ukrainians flying old aircraft that are often more exposed than F-16s, especially since many of the Ukrainian planes lost were on the ground.
As we can see, the Russians certainly have a big intelligence deficit and are unable to fly over Ukrainian territory with their own aircraft. Even worse, when we start to see that the Russians are increasingly forced to restrict themselves to their own territory.
At first it was the runways in the war zone (Crimea etc...) that were being hit so hard that the Russians had to move the aircraft. Then some bases near Ukraine were hit by drones, including in Belarus. Recently, two planes and two helicopters were shot down in Russian territory during a bombing mission.
On the Ukrainian side, important intelligence is given to the Russians, which gradually leads them to move away from their air force, if not to do without it. Intelligence and means that target the Russian ground-air defence (anti-radar missile for example) to move it away from the front or destroy it. We see the Ukrainians advancing their own ground-to-air means from the front and I think that we will see the arrival of means (drones) to saturate the Russian means and make them fire a maximum of missiles.
The arrival of the F-16s is part of this dynamic. This conflict reveals more and more the need to obtain the means to strike far with precision. The concept of proximity air support (helicopters) or old-fashioned bombing (smooth bombs, rockets or even a cannon pass) shows its inadequacy in such a conflict. The weapons that make the difference and that are sought after by both sides are these precision weapons, whether in the form of a missile, a guided bomb/rocket or drones, this conflict shows the interest of all this.
In the West, we have long been developing an aviation system where guided bombs have become the norm, to the point where the number of bombs that are counted in an inventory no longer takes into account the smooth bombs, let alone the baskets of rockets. Many people thought and continue to think that this would be too costly a choice and that we should take inspiration from countries like Russia, which would choose to have inexpensive simplicity (smooth bombs etc.) that would achieve the same result in numbers.
But no, it is not a choice, it is a natural evolution of a need that Russia has never fully met, continuing with its old model and finding itself today with hundreds of useless aircraft because it has neither the guided bombs in inventory, nor the doctrine of use, nor its full integration with ground units. It is not the Russian capacity to strike far with missiles that proves that it can strike with precision far behind enemy lines, this capacity is of a strategic nature (fixed target of value whose coordinates are known (intelligence...)), it is old but it is not that which will replace the air support that troops engaged on the ground might want.
When we see the use that Russia makes of these missiles and we see its doubtful precision, its effect is null, it is almost only mediatic and psychological, in fact you take away these things from the Russians tomorrow, what would we talk about to evoke their actions in Ukraine? The seizure of two blocks of flats in Bakhmut? The Kremlin is forced to continue its Iranian missile and drone strikes to give this image where it is the one with the sword in its hand and it is the one who gives the blows, except that as I said, it does not bring anything and that is the whole problem.
In the meantime, the Ukrainians are gradually transforming, they are becoming westernised. It's not just a question of having an American armoured vehicle instead of a Soviet one, it's a question of global approach, methods and tactics. Intelligence is massive and let's not underestimate it. The F-16 is not just a plane that will replace a Mig-29, it is to provide the Ukrainians with an air platform allowing them to obtain Western-style air support, i.e. the ability to provide troops in contact with a precision strike via a target designation (laser essentially).
NATO has long relied on its air superiority and if Russia (the USSR yesterday) has invested massively in ground-air defence, it is also and above all because it knew it was outdated and could not compete with its own air force (thus a de facto abandonment of a desire to dominate the skies in order to seek to reduce the domination of the other). NATO has an enormous air potential with very large stocks of ammunition that will relieve precision ground-to-ground artillery (or not) that might be under some strain or even relieve ground-to-air defence. The whole question is to measure the volume of aircraft to come. The modified Mig-29s already provide a first JDAM/Storm Shadow capability that will be perceptible in the next offensive, but the F-16 will make this a longer-term and more important capability.
