Ukraine's air defense success deals heavy financial blow to Russia

The commander of the air forces, Mykola Oleshchuk, stated on his Telegram profile that the army "confirms the shooting down of the Su-34 fighter jet," and added, "unfortunately, just one." This is not Ukraine's first success recently. Earlier, Ukrainian forces fired anti-aircraft missiles at two Russian combat aircraft - Su-34 and Su-35.

Oleshchuk added, "it's getting harder for the invaders to fly." He also appealed to the West: "we need more systems, more weapons, to clear our skies." The good run for the Ukrainian forces continues. As reported by the Ukrainian armed forces, by 1st March, Kyiv has shot down 11 Su-34 attack aircraft (£29 million each, or approx. £145 million) and two Su-35 jets, costing £68 million each (over £136 million).

According to information provided by the Ukrainian side, since the beginning of the full-scale war, which started in Ukraine on 24th February 2022, Ukrainian forces have shot down as many as 335 Russian military aircraft.

Brigadier General (Ret.) pilot Dr. Jan Rajchel, in an interview with Wirtualna Polska, mentions that one should "approach the data provided by Ukraine with certain reservations". "I cannot verify them, and at the beginning of the conflict, we had a few pieces of information that were not confirmed. However, undoubtedly, these Russian losses are significant," he notes.

In his opinion, the Russians approached this war according to the standards of conducting a combined air operation. "Attempts were made to gain air superiority by eliminating, in the first hours of the war, the threat from the Ukrainian side. This meant eliminating aviation and anti-aircraft defense, air defense," he lists.

"They conducted the operation, choosing targets to strike, which were strategic in terms of aviation. They did not achieve success in this area and moved on to ground operations. Without control of the airspace or even sufficient superiority, which resulted in losses and failures in the first part of the operation," reminds the expert.

The interviewee points out that "the Russians tried to somehow compensate for this," so "there was a fight for air control, which neither side won or gained a decisive advantage."

"The Russians incurred quite a lot of losses, both in helicopters and aircraft, on the territory of Ukraine. This shows that the Ukrainians made very good use of the anti-aircraft defense systems, supplied successively by Western countries," he adds.

Gen. Rajchel says because of this, the Russians as if stopped such activities. "We had examples of this basically this year. They very rarely attacked Ukrainian positions, flying into the territory of Ukraine. Especially the battle for Avdiivka showed that without air superiority, it is very difficult to achieve success in ground operations. And even if such success is achieved, it must be paid for with significant losses," he explains.

"I cannot say what the current state of Ukrainian aviation is. However, the state of anti-aircraft defense, based on own systems and systems supplied by Western countries, is quite sizeable," he adds.

And he notes that these air defense systems were focused on defending the urban agglomeration, namely the urban agglomerations at the most important objects of critical infrastructure. "Here, by the number of Russian missile projectiles shot down, we see that the defense was effective. Most likely, however, the Ukrainians did not have enough anti-aircraft defense to direct it to the most threatened directions in terms of ground operations," highlights the expert.

"The recent Russian losses are probably caused by the fact that the Ukrainians, weakening the defense of their critical infrastructure and cities a bit, however directed more anti-aircraft defense systems to other places. In my opinion, that's where the losses come from. The Russians probably didn't expect such a maneuver," adds the military.

As he points out, Russian aircraft, wanting to make an attack on Ukrainian positions, had to enter the range of these combat systems, which resulted in losses. "It is clear that even the most modern Russian technology is not coping with modern anti-aircraft defense means," he says.

Whether the introduction of F-16s to Ukraine at last is a situation where an even bigger breakthrough can occur? Gen. Rajchel stresses that he does not think that we would obtain such public information about it before their introduction into combat. "The Ukrainians have to do it in a secretive way since it is expected that the F-16 basing airports will be Russian primary targets for attacks," he adds.

"Has the F-16 already entered the fight? We don't know. If they had, the Ukrainians would probably boast about it, so it is rather unlikely. Introducing F-16s as fighter jets performing combat tasks may lead to a situation like we’ve seen in recent days. Because the range of the F-16 is significantly larger," explains the expert.

Will the introduction of these machines change anything? "Definitely, but it's hard to predict unequivocally that it will reverse the outcome of the war for that reason," he says.

"We must understand that the F-16 is an excellent aircraft, but then, when it operates within the whole system. When it cooperates with early detection and guidance aircraft," he explains.