...takes off so fast that he doesn’t yet know his mission for the night, though the big picture is always the same — to bring the fight to a Russian Air Force that is vastly superior in numbers but has so far failed to win control of the skies above Ukraine.
Nearly a month into the fighting, one of the biggest surprises of the war in Ukraine is Russia’s failure to defeat the Ukrainian Air Force. Military analysts had expected Russian forces to quickly destroy or paralyze Ukraine’s air defenses and military aircraft, yet neither have happened.
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The Ukrainian Air Force is operating in near total secrecy. Its fighter jets can fly from air strips in western Ukraine, airports that have been bombed yet retain enough runway for takeoffs or landings — or even from highways, analysts say. They are vastly outnumbered: Russia is believed to fly some 200 sorties per day while Ukraine flies five to 10.
Ukrainian pilots do have one advantage. In most of the country, Russian planes fly over territory controlled by the Ukrainian military, which can move anti-aircraft missiles to harass — and shoot down — planes.
“Ukraine has been effective in the sky because we operate on our own land,” Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force said. “The enemy flying into our airspace is flying into the zone of our air defense systems.” He described the strategy as luring Russian planes into air defense traps.
Ah! Ukrainians real humans, not anthropoids like Rooski, with real human brain! Rooski brain as beeg as yu eyeball.
...Ukraine now has roughly 55 operational fighter jets, a number that is dwindling from shoot-downs and mechanical failures, as Ukrainian pilots are “stressing them to max performance.”
Ah, and that is down from about 75 just a week or so ago. And the West can't replenish them, that was the kerfuffle with Poland. That's a problem. After one of the Confederate States appalling victories over the United States in the Civil War Lincoln said that even if the relative losses continued at that same lopsided pace the Confederates would lose the war just as surely if the battles had been decisive U.S. victories.
...transferring [Polish MIGs]...into Ukraine is critical. “Without resupply they will run out of airplanes before they run out of pilots.”-Expert. Yes, exactly.
Pilotless drones are also a tool in the Ukrainian military’s arsenal, but...cannot hit targets in the air. If Ukraine’s air defenses fail, Russian jets could easily pick them off.
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“I only have to use my skills to win,” said Andriy. “My skills are better than the Russians. But on the other hand, many of my friends, and even those more experience than me, are already dead.”
Andriy have skeels, Rooski anthropoid have head as beeg as they eyeball. But Andriy expresses the contemporary military maxim Lincoln expressed in the U.S. Civil War: "Mass matters." Quality can close the gap with quantity temporarily in a defensive war like Ukraine is fighting, like the Confederates fought. But over time, with attrition, mass matters most.
