Will Belgium’s F-16 pledge give Ukraine more reach as drone strikes hit Moscow again?

Belgium’s role in Ukraine’s air war is back in focus after Flemish live coverage reported that Kyiv had again hit an oil refinery in Moscow during what Russian officials described as a large drone attack, while Belgium is preparing to hand over its retired F-16 fleet to Ukraine. For Belgium-based readers, the link is direct: this is not only a battlefield story in Russia and Ukraine, but also a Belgian defence-policy story involving federal military assets, NATO coordination and EU pressure on Moscow. The immediate military picture is that Ukraine is pushing its long-range campaign deeper into Russia’s energy and military infrastructure. AP reported fresh Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian gas and satellite-linked targets, while other international reporting this week described the Moscow refinery strike as part of Kyiv’s wider effort to disrupt fuel supply, military logistics and the sense of immunity around the Russian capital. Belgium enters through the air-defence side of the same conflict. The F-16 pledge originates in Belgium’s 2024 bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, signed by then-prime minister Alexander De Croo and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Brussels. That agreement included 30 F-16 fighter jets and nearly €1 billion in military aid for 2024. Belgian reporting and defence tracking since then have tied deliveries to Belgium’s phased replacement of F-16s by F-35s, now overseen politically by Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s government and Defence Minister Theo Francken. The F-16s are not a quick fix. Ukraine needs trained pilots, ground crews, spare parts, protected bases and integrated air-defence planning. Belgian aircraft also depend on the pace at which Belgium can retire them without leaving gaps in its own air policing and NATO commitments. That makes the issue more complex than a simple “f-16 oekraine schenken” headline: it is a transfer of a weapons system, not only a donation of airframes. The broader war context is changing. Ukraine’s drone programme is now striking energy targets far beyond the front line, including the kind of attack Flemish outlets described as “opnieuw olieraffinaderij Moskou” after an “enorme droneaanval”. Russia, meanwhile, continues missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities. The result is a widening contest over air power: drones pressure Russia’s rear; F-16s, Patriots and other systems are meant to protect Ukraine and improve its ability to contest the skies. For the EU institutions in Brussels, the story lands inside a larger policy debate: how much military capability Europe can provide, how fast, and under what restrictions. Belgium is both an EU member state and NATO host country, but the centre of gravity remains the war itself: Ukraine is trying to offset Russia’s larger missile and aircraft inventory, while Moscow is trying to portray Western-supplied systems as escalation. What happens next depends on three tracks: confirmation of the damage in Moscow, Belgium’s delivery calendar for its F-16s, and allied decisions on how Ukraine may use Western-backed capabilities. Any delay in aircraft, training or maintenance limits battlefield effect. Any acceleration will raise political questions in Belgium about defence readiness, budget priorities and the country’s long-term role in European security.