Just days before the upcoming NATO summit, scheduled to take place in Washington from July 9 to 11, Russia has intensified the military pressure on Kyiv, by stepping up strikes on its air bases. According to analysts, this pressure has been largely linked to Ukraine's imminent official reception of the first F-16 fighter jets, which Western countries have been promising to transfer to the country for many months.

In the space of a few days, several large-scale strikes have hit Ukrainian bases, according to reports corroborated by both Russian and Western sources. First at Myrhorod, on July 1 and 2, in the Poltava region of central Ukraine, and then at Dolgintsevo air base, in the Dnipro region, located 80 kilometers from the front lines, according to a July 4 Russian defense ministry statement. Moscow claimed that at least six fighter jets had been destroyed. The Ukrainians have not denied these losses, although they have sought to downplay them.

This was not the first time that the Russians had targeted Ukrainian air bases. In recent months, however, their air campaigns had been concentrated on the country's energy infrastructure, to the extent that Ukrainians have already become concerned about the winter, as their access to heating and electricity looks to be even more limited than in previous years. According to a Western military source, the recent strikes have reflected Russia's desire to "flex its muscles to make the Ukrainians and their supporters think twice at a pivotal moment."

Although it has been discussed since the beginning of 2023, the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine is expected to become an operational reality this summer, at least for the first units. Some 95 of these American-made aircraft have been promised to Kyiv by its allies, to be delivered between now and 2028: 30 from Belgium, 24 from the Netherlands, 22 from Norway and 19 from Denmark. At the end of May, Sweden also pledged to send an AWACS-type aircraft, which is crucial for acquiring intelligence and coordinating potential F-16 operations.

The Russian pressure has also come at a time when several countries have, in recent weeks, confirmed the arrival of the first F-16s in Romania, which is on the shores of the Black Sea and shares a border with Ukraine. At the end of 2023, a training center for Ukrainian pilots opened in Romania, where future pilots would be trained to operate the F-16s after several months of more theoretical training, under the supervision of Kyiv's allies.

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