C T Online Desk: Four weeks into the Ukraine invasion, Russia on Friday came up with a major statement: the first phase of its “military operation” in the ex-Soviet nation was mostly complete.
This comes amid fierce fighting between militaries of the two neighbouing countries, killing at least 1,300 Russian troops since February 24, according to Moscow.
Kyiv, nevertheless, argues that the number is over 16,000 as of Friday. Russian state news deleted a post earlier last week suggesting troop deaths at roughly 10,000.
Regardless of the disparity, even the Russian accounting presents a staggering acknowledgment of battlefield carnage for a supposedly contemporary military.
Facing stiff resistance, Russian troops have failed to capture any major city in the month since invading Ukraine.
Much to the surprise of many, one of the biggest successes for Ukraine so far in the war is Russia’s failure to defeat the Ukrainian Air Force.
Vastly outmatched by Russia’s military, in terms of raw numbers and firepower, Ukraine’s own air force is still flying and its air defences are still deemed to be viable – a fact that is baffling military experts.
In this regard, The New York Times reports: “Military analysts had expected Russian forces to quickly destroy or paralyze Ukraine’s air defenses and military aircraft, yet neither has happened.”
Russia invaded Ukraine “with an arsenal of advanced fighter planes, bombers, and guided missiles, but significant combat losses in more than three weeks of fighting raise questions whether Moscow will ever fully dominate the skies,” observes Wall Street Journal.
The very matter now begs the question: “how did Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighter jets and air defence systems deny Russia aerial impunity?
Anaysing the overall situation, the Week magazine has picked up three points.
First, Ukraine has been nimble and creative with the air defence systems they have, a mixture of decades-old S-300 long-range missile-defence units, Turkish Bayraktar TB-2 drones, and portable US-provided Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Ukraine’s long-range anti-air batteries have forced “Russian pilots to fly lower to escape those systems, but that put them within range of the shoulder-fired weapons,” like the heat-seeking Stingers, the Journal reports. The heavy losses inflicted by these weapons have limited Russian sorties.
Second, despite having only about 55 working fighter jets, Ukraine utilizes its home-field advantage. “Ukraine has been effective in the sky because we operate on our own land,” says Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat. “The enemy flying into our airspace is flying into the zone of our air defence systems.”
The Russians “have almost full air superiority,” because Ukrainian has limited air defence and aircraft, a Ukrainian fighter pilot using the call sign “Juice” told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday. But “Russians have a lot of losses, and they have a fear of our air defence.”
Third, in the eight years since Russia annexed Crimea and stealth-invaded Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, “we have developed different techniques to give the enemy a punch in the teeth,” Ignat tells the Journal. Ukraine’s air defence has also likely “benefited from new approaches to fighting that the military embraced as it reorientated toward Nato and abandoned its Soviet-era centralized command,” the Journal reports.
Ukraine’s air force is greatly outnumbered, but its jets can take off from partially destroyed runways or even highways, the Times reports. “I only have to use my skills to win,” a fighter pilot name Andriy told the newspaper.
“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.”
