You've missed an element of what Ritter said. It's not about the "skill of the pilot". He comments very positively on the skill of the Ukrainian pilots. But F-16s are extremely complex machines with a lot of elements in play simultaneously. Can the Ukrainians learn to use them? Of course. No question. But battle situations go beyond the basics of flying. In combat situations, the fractions of a second that differentiate a person who thinks about their next move versus the person who has used the equipment so long that muscle memory bypasses thought make the difference between kill or be killed. The Ukrainian pilots already have muscle memory on the airframes they have been trained on for decades. While they can learn to use the F-16, they will not be able to exploit its features quickly enough to use it effectively. That kind of training is done over years, not months.

The fact that Ukraine is asking for this equipment and that they assess they can take on the Russian fighters has no bearing on whether they are correct in that assessment. One of the Patriot batteries was already removed from action yesterday, now confirmed by the west.

This is not about whether the Ukrainians are skilled. They are. They have proven themselves a far more effective fighting force than many - myself included - expected them to be. But throwing advanced systems in as though it's just a matter of provide the systems and they will win is a dangerous oversimplification of the battlefield realities that a weapons system must include people fully trained in its use (not quick trained, fully trained) to yield the advertised results. The Russians they are up against are fully trained on their systems. That advantage should not be overlooked.