You know what’s wild about the Slovak F-16 purchase? The party (and especially its leader) that owned the defense ministry at the time was super pro-Russia. Like, “getting awards from Putin” pro-Russia.
Anyway, EVERYONE knew that they were gonna buy Gripens. This dude didn’t like us, they were cheaper, the Czechs and Hungarians flew Gripens, even the opposition touted the Gripens…done deal. And then they start asking seriously about F-16s and the thought is “WTF.” And then they buy the damn things.
The conspiracy is, he knew they couldn’t stay with MiGs and he wanted to do something for his Russian friends. The F-16 delivery schedule was known to take longer, so that means MiG gets a longer contract to maintain. And it all blows up in 2022, the former opposition controls the government and those MiGs are likely bombing Russians NOW.