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  Ukraine Could Lose Most Available F-16s to Maintenance Delays in a Few Months Ukraine could see most of its F-16 fighter fleet unavailable for combat by the end of the year because of lengthy maintenance delays in Belgium, the Wall Street Journal reported on September 29. More than half of Ukraine's F-16s are currently in what a Western source described to the WSJ as "maintenance limbo." At the current pace of operations and repairs, the source said, Ukraine could exhaust the remainder of its available F-16s by the end of the year. The maintenance bottleneck is linked in part to the intensive use of the fighters. After about 300 flight hours, F-16s require a detailed phase inspection covering their engines, avionics, hydraulic systems, fuel lines and other components. Such inspections generally take two to six weeks in the United States, but can take as long as 40 weeks in Belgium, according to retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who was cited by the report...