Ukraine pilots want F-15 and F-16 drones to be sold

Kiev pilots would prefer jets instead of rockets because Russian air defenses are too risky for Gray Eagles.

Military officials in Kiev are calling for fighter jets such as the F-15 and F-16, because Washington is reportedly waffled on selling Gray Eagle combat drones to Ukraine.

One pilot told Foreign Policy that Ukraine is not Afghanistan and the expensive drones would just get shot down.

Retired US officers and pundits like Max Boot have campaigned for the delivery of Gray Eagles to Ukraine, calling it a potential game changer in the conflict. Plans to send four such drones to Kiev were put on hold last week by the White House due to fears that they could fall into Russian hands.

According to Foreign Policy, the Ukrainian generals would like to get their hands on the drones, but the pilots would prefer US fighter-bombers.

We are not advocating for the Gray Eagles, one pilot who only went by Moonfish, told the outlet. He added that it's very dangerous to use such expensive drones in our case because of the enemy's air defense. The MQ-1 C Gray Eagle is the latest in the General Atomics lineage of strike drones used in the US war on terror, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Somalia and Yemen. It is armed with Hellfire missiles, which have a range of about eight kilometers less than the Switchblade or Phoenix Ghost suicide drones the US has sent to Ukraine already.

He added that the Gray Eagles would probably not survive more than a mission or two if it was useful on the frontline. Each drone costs $10 million.

Ukraine has Turkish Bayraktar TB 2 strike drones in its arsenal, which makes it a big deal. The TB 2 costs around $2 million or so. Moonfish claims they were very useful and important in the early days of the conflict, but are almost useless now that Russian troops have beefed up their air defenses. The pilots told Foreign Policy that Ukraine was limiting the use of Bayraktars to rare special operations and attack missions. Russian war correspondents suggest that most of the drones have already been shot down, because most of the drones have already been shot down.

Moonfish said we have a lot more pilots than jets right now, which suggests he and his colleagues should be trained on advanced US fighter jets such as the F-15 and F-16, which would be more survivable against the Russian S 400 s.

Both types first appeared in the 1970s and have been upgraded repeatedly since, and the latest versions are considered by Western experts to be on par with Russian Su 35 and MiG 35 jets and slightly ahead of the Su 27 and Mig 29 fighters Ukraine operated at the beginning of the conflict. There is no indication that the US has any to spare, or that there is political will in Washington to send them to Ukraine.