Recent article in The Telegraph (UK) had a segement on the Ukraine AF operations vs Russian VKS.
"Outnumbered five to one, Ukraine’s top guns fend off Russian
fighter jets against the odds
During a month at war, Kyiv’s pilots have stymied Moscow’s attempt to establish air
superiority despite being given little chance
By Robert Mendick, CHIEF REPORTER
22 March 2022 • 6:56pm
www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/22/ukraine-fighter-jets-air-force-against-odds-russian-invasion/ 2/11
Night after night, Ukraine’s fighter jet pilots have taken the battle to an enemy that has
“five times more planes”; their aircraft pushed to the limit with no time for pre-take-off
checks. The chances of survival in the dogfights in Ukrainian airspace are all too slim.
But against the odds, Ukraine’s air force has kept flying a month since the Russian
invasion started. Nobody gave the pilots more than a few days. Moscow’s failure to
establish air superiority – key if it ever wanted to win a speedy victory – has caused the
invasion to stall.
Without air cover, Vladimir Putin’s army is stuck, unable to venture beyond entrenched
positions without being picked off at will.
For the first time, Ukrainian air force pilots have been allowed to tell their story of how
they have kept the skies open after The New York Times was given access to pilots at an
airbase, its location undisclosed for obvious reasons.
“Each night,” said the newspaper, the pilots “loiter” in their hangar until the tension is
broken with a shout of “Air!”
Andriy, 25, a Ukrainian fighter pilot, told the paper he was not informed of his mission
until he was in the air. The pilots have little time for pre-flight briefings, seemingly aware
that it is not a good idea to linger in one spot for too long.
Andriy, whose surname and rank has been kept secret, said there was no time in a conflict
to make pre-take-off safety checks on his Sukhoi Su-27, a Soviet-origin, twin-engined
fighter jet. Out of Ukraine’s total fleet of about 100 combat aircraft at the start of the war,
roughly a third were Su-27s. Now, fewer than 60 are available.
“I don’t do any checks. I just take off,” he said, adding: “Every time when I fly, it’s for a real
fight. In every fight with Russian jets, there is no equality. They always have five times
more planes in the air.”
Living to knock the enemy out of the sky
In almost four weeks of fighting, Andriy has flown 10 sorties. Dogfights were supposed to
have been consigned to history. But in this war, Ukraine jets have engaged with Russian
fighters and Andriy says he has shot down Russian aircraft – although, as The New York
Times reported, he was neither permitted to say what he has taken out nor how many.
“I mostly have tasks of hitting airborne targets, of intercepting enemy jets,” he said. “I
wait for the missile to lock on my target. After that, I press ‘fire’.”
He now lives for knocking the enemy out of the sky: “I am happy that this plane will no
longer bomb my peaceful towns. And as we see in practice, that is exactly what Russian
jets do.
“I had situations when I was approaching a Russian plane to a close enough distance to
target and fire. I could already detect it, but was waiting for my missile to lock on while at
the same time from the ground they tell me that a missile was fired at me already.”
Andriy told how he had pushed his Su-27 through steep banks, climbs and dives to avoid
the incoming missile.
He said: “The time I have to save myself depends on how far away the missile was fired at
me and what kind of missile. I can still feel a huge rush of adrenaline in my body because
every flight is a fight.”
A graduate of the Kharkiv Air Force School, Andriy had wanted to be a pilot since
childhood. However, the true nature of war and the violence of the conflict has clearly
shocked him.
“Neither me nor my friends ever thought we would have to face a real war. But that’s not
how it turned out,” he said.
Andriy, who is married, has relocated his wife to another area of Ukraine that is currently
secure. He telephones her only after he has returned safely from a sortie, but never
before.
“I only have to use my skills to win,” Andriy told The New York Times. “My skills are
better than the Russians. But on the other hand, many of my friends, and even those more
experienced than me, are already dead.”
Mismatch in the skies
The mismatch in the skies was supposed to have ensured a quick win for Putin. Russia has
more modern aircraft. While Andriy flies an Su-27, his Russian counterparts are flying the
more technologically advanced, newer generation Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft.
In the build-up to the invasion, analysts estimated that Russia had about 300 combat
aircraft available for sorties into Ukraine out of a total attack fleet of 1,500. Russia has
suffered losses. Ukraine claims to have downed 97 fixed-wing aircraft.
Experts suggested that number may be optimistic, although as many as 10 or 11 were lost
on one weekend early in the war, forcing Russia to change tactics reducing the number of
forays.
Ukraine has 55 warplanes now ready to fly owing to losses in the sky or mechanical and
maintenance problems caused by wear and tear.
Justin Bronk, a research fellow in airpower and technology at the Royal United Services
Institute, said that Russia’s inability to knock out Ukraine’s air defence systems, rather
than the heroism of the fixed-wing fighter pilots, had hit Putin’s plans hardest.
“As I understand it, Ukraine is not flying that many missions in fixed-wing fast jets,” he
said.
After suffering heavy losses over the weekend of March 4 and 5, Russia had strengthened
its own air defence systems, restricting Ukraine jets to shorter sorties at low level. A fully
laden Su-27, flown by the Ukraine military at low altitude to stay under the radar, may
have a flying time of no more than 30 minutes.
However, according to Mr Bronk, Ukraine’s air defence systems – the S400 and S300,
both Russian made – have been effective at bringing down jets and cruise missiles while
unmanned drones continue to hit Russian targets, flying into the wind at slow speeds to
evade Russian radar systems.
He believes Russia has lost up to 22 fast jets and clearly still has capability, but is
seemingly not willing to risk further losses.
He added: “What the Russians have still been unable to do is knock out the Sam [surfaceto-air missile] systems, which means they have to fly around at either very low altitude or
very high altitude.”
Has Russia run out of momentum?
Most Russian sorties are restricted to 45,000 feet and may be in Ukrainian airspace for no
more than a few minutes before returning to bases either in Crimea or in Belarus.
“Russia has run out of momentum,” said Mr Bronk, adding that if Ukraine can maintain its
current level of resistance, then the war is unsustainable for Russia.
Philip Ingram, a former British Army colonel in military intelligence, said: “It is quite
clear the Ukrainian air defence systems remain operational and capable and their fixedwing aircraft are still flying albeit in a limited way.
“Given Russia’s air advantage, I am surprised we have not seen more of their air force
come into play. But without air superiority, they cannot plan properly or manoeuvre
operations.”
For the moment, Russia is flying about 200 sorties a day compared to five to 10 a day by
Ukraine. But those high-altitude missions, dropping so-called “dumb” bombs, might have
a devastating effect on the civilian populations being bombed mercilessly in cities such as
Mariupol. Yet that doesn’t necessarily help Russia win the war, and certainly not quickly.
The Ukrainian air force still has runways it can use in the west of the country and there is
even an ability to take off from major roads. The locations are closely guarded secrets.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian air force said that Russian planes were being lured into
traps inside Ukraine air space.
They said: “Ukraine has been effective in the sky because we operate on our own land.
The enemy flying into our airspace is flying into the zone of our air defence systems.”
And while the air defence systems can evade Russian missiles, Russian planes cannot
undertake precision bombing needed to win the war on the ground.
Putin’s dream of a rapid win has gone. A lengthy war of attrition beckons."
All copyright to the Telegraph - too interesting an article not to share.
