Especially in the air, it was expected that Russia would quickly achieve total dominance. The Ukrainian air force consisted of partially decommissioned Soviet-made combat aircraft, while the Russian air force was considered superior to the Ukrainian one.
Over two years later, Russia has lost over 200 combat aircraft and helicopters in total, according to the Dutch website Oryx.
The same website has registered 75 destroyed Ukrainian combat aircraft and 43 destroyed helicopters.
These are only losses that have been documented with a photo or video, and the real number is in all likelihood higher.
Self https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1782996891145220569/photo/1 Ukraine that Russia has lost 348 combat aircraft and 325 helicopters, but these figures cannot be verified.
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– No plan B
– Russia carried out fairly well-planned and choreographed air operations in February 2022, where they probably imagined that they would win the war quickly, says Lars Peder Haga to Ukrainapodden, a podcast from Nettavisen.
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify here, and anywhere else you usually listen to podcasts.
Haga is an associate professor at the Norwegian Air Force School, and an expert on Soviet and Russian air power.
The Ukrainian Air Force eventually regrouped and reorganized, and after a short time Russia lost many fighter jets, resulting in them ceasing to fly over Ukrainian-controlled territory.
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– Then we saw that Russia had no plan B after the first plan failed.
Haga believes that part of Russia’s problem was a lack of qualified pilots.
– They cut their defense quite sharply with reforms around 2008-2010. Then they cut back on the number of training places for pilots. This led to a concern about whether they would be able to train enough pilots, especially because they bought a lot of aircraft at the same time, says Haga.
– It is not enough to have pilots who can fly, they must also train to use weapon systems and advanced tactics, explains Haga.
Russian arms shortage
– There are two things that have hit the Russians at the same time. Russia also has quite a small number of precision guided weapon systems, and then they get few pilots who are qualified to use them. It has been an Achilles’ heel for both the Soviet and Russian air forces, says Haga.
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He says this has been pointed out since long before the full-scale invasion in 2022. While the West, led by the United States, has developed advanced precision-guided missiles and guidance mechanisms to upgrade ordinary “dumb” bombs that can easily be mass-produced, Russia’s missiles have been built manually, which has has meant that they have not been able to produce as many at the same pace.
This has meant that Russia has not had enough missiles available to both train for use and at the same time have a large enough stockpile in the event of war.
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– In February 2022, Russia had a stockpile of precision weapons, which they had to build new ones to replace. It is quite clear that they did not plan for this war to last more than two years. When it comes to Russia has used these in so-called attack waves, Haga explains to Ukrainapodden.
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify here, and anywhere else you usually listen to podcasts.
– Almost hand-made
Every single night, Russia attacks Ukraine with one-way attack drones. The drones fly relatively low and slowly, and are correspondingly easy to shoot down compared to more advanced missiles.
Large attacks with cruisers and missiles happen relatively rarely, but when they do come it usually happens in large waves with many missiles at once. This is done to overwhelm the Ukrainian Air Force, in the hope that something will slip through.
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– The Russian cruise missiles that are launched from combat aircraft were almost hand-produced, with a production of a few tens a month. Russia has increased production quite a bit, but we see that there is a long way between the really big waves of missile attacks, says Haga.
Russia is also completely dependent on foreign technology, especially computer chips, to build its own missiles. Western sanctions have made it harder for Russia to get the parts they need, but the Russians still manage to get it.
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– When Russian missiles have been taken apart, they have found, among other things, American-made electronics. Since 2014, Russia has wanted to produce this itself, but has not been able to, Haga explains to Ukrainapodden.
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