From what I have heard, the F16s require a 'clean' airfield where servicemen will daily walk the runways to find and remove small pieces of debris from the runw

From what I have heard, the F16s require a 'clean' airfield where servicemen will daily walk the runways to find and remove small pieces of debris from the runways that would otherwise be sucked into the engine air intakes during take off and landing and cause damage to the engine. From the article: “F-16s do best on long, pristine runways." Ukraine does not have airfields like this any more. Quite often the planes would even be required to use sections of ordinary road highway as landing grounds. In such a situation, those F16s would soon be too damaged to be useful.