PUTIN NEEDS TO END THIS INSANITY!
FIGHTER pilots LVIV, Ukraine — Each night, Ukrainian pilots like Andriy loiter in an undisclosed aircraft hangar, waiting, waiting, until the tension is broken with a shouted, one-word command: “Air!”
Andriy hustles into his Su-27 supersonic jet and hastily taxis toward the runway, getting airborne as quickly as possible. He 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.
“I don’t do any checks,” said Andriy, a Ukrainian Air Force pilot who as a condition of granting an interview was not permitted to give his surname or rank. “I just take off.”
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 has happened. Instead, Top Gun-style aerial dogfights, rare in modern warfare, are now raging above the country.
“Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight,” said Andriy, who is 25 and has flown 10 missions in the war. “In every fight with Russian jets, there is no equality. They always have five times more” planes in the air.
The success of Ukrainian pilots has helped protect Ukrainian soldiers on the ground and prevented wider bombing in cities, since pilots have intercepted some Russian cruise missiles. Ukrainian officials also say the country’s military has shot down 97 fixed-wing Russian aircraft. That number could not be verified but the crumpled remnants of Russian fighter jets have crashed into rivers, fields and houses.
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Andriy, a Ukrainian Air Force pilot.“Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight,” he said.
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Andriy, a Ukrainian Air Force pilot.“Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight,” he said.
Andriy, a Ukrainian Air Force pilot.“Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight,” he said.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
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.
Dave Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the principal attack planner for the Desert Storm air campaign in Iraq, said the impressive performance of the Ukrainian pilots had helped counter their disadvantages in numbers. He said 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.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has appealed repeatedly to Western governments to replenish the Ukrainian Air Force and has asked NATO to enforce a no-fly zone over the country, a step Western leaders have so far refused to take. Slovakia and Poland have considered sending MiG-29 fighter jets, which Ukrainian pilots could fly with minimal additional training, but as yet no transfers have been made.
“Russian troops have already fired nearly 1,000 missiles at Ukraine, countless bombs,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video address to Congress on March 16, appealing for more planes. “And you know that they exist, and you have them, but they are on earth, not in Ukraine — in the Ukrainian sky.”
Mr. Deptula said transferring these jets into Ukraine is critical. “Without resupply,” he said, “they will run out of airplanes before they run out of pilots.”
Pilotless drones are also a tool in the Ukrainian military’s arsenal, but not in the battle for control of the airspace. Ukraine flies a Turkish-made armed drone, the Bayraktar TB-2, a plodding, propeller aircraft that is lethally effective in destroying tanks or artillery pieces on the ground but cannot hit targets in the air. If Ukraine’s air defenses fail, Russian jets could easily pick them off.
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