Justin Bronk

Don’t write off the Russian air force

Ukraine still needs considerable air-defence support

(Photo: Getty)

The Russian air force’s  failure to establish air superiority over Ukraine – and the consequent inability of its fighter and bomber aircraft to meaningfully affect the course of the war – has been one of the defining features of the invasion so far.   

It has even become almost a given in policy and public discussion that Russian airpower is a busted flush. But recent research conducted by RUSI in Ukraine shows that in fact Russia conducted hundreds of strike sorties and fighter patrols deep inside Ukrainian airspace during the first three days of the invasion – which suggests it would be a dangerous mistake to underestimate Russian airpower as the war continues.  

In air-to-air clashes, Russian fighters completely outmatched their Ukrainian opponents

During the first days of the invasion, Ukrainian surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries were successfully jammed by Russian electronic attack. The Ukrainians were simultaneously forced to urgently relocate their mobile SAMs and radars to avoid missile and aircraft strikes. This meant that Ukraine had no effective ground-based air defences for the first two days of the invasion, and Russian fighters caused serious losses among Ukrainian air force fighter pilots, who were left desperately trying to hold back Russian strike aircraft.  

In air-to-air clashes, Russian fighters completely outmatched their Ukrainian opponents. The Russian Su-35S and Su-30SM both have radars with many times the effective range of the older models fitted to Ukrainian Su-27 and Mig-29 fighters. They also carry R-77-1 active-radar guided air-to-air missiles that have a much longer effective range and more tactical flexibility than the R-27R semi-active radar guided missiles available to Ukrainian pilots.   

Russian fighter aircraft also vastly outnumbered their Ukrainian counterparts, who were forced to fly very low to try to use ‘terrain masking’ to get close enough to fire their missiles. This made it harder for high-flying Russian fighter patrols to reliably detect and track Ukrainian fighters.

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Written by
Justin Bronk
Justin Bronk is the Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology in the Military Sciences team at RUSI. He is also Editor of the RUSI Defence Systems online journal.

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