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Why the Russians can't gain air superiority in Ukraine. [1]

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Date: 2023-04-05  

One of the mysteries of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is how Russia did not gain — and still has not gained — air superiority over Ukraine. Let’s take a minute to examine some reasons why this might be the case.

The Numbers

To set the stage, let’s take a look at relative size of the two air forces at the start of the invasion.

Russia began the war with an estimated 1,500 attack aircraft, give or take a few (I’m not going to get into support aircraft, training aircraft, etc.)

It was surprisingly hard to suss out how many attack aircraft Ukraine had before the invasion. Some sources said as few as 69 working attack aircraft. In general, numbers seem to settle between 100 and 150, but Ukraine also had a fair number of old airframes in storage from which it could get parts or even get up and functional again with some time and elbow grease.

Regardless, as you can see, Russia at the start of the invasion had somewhere on the order of a 10 to 15-to-1 advantage in numbers of attack aircraft. Of course, Russia could not send all of these aircraft to Ukraine and a large number would never get near Ukraine as they are needed to mind Russia’s borders. But just from raw numbers of planes on paper, one would have thought Russia could have easily swamped Ukraine’s relatively small air force and dominated Ukrainian skies.

Since then, other countries have forwarded some additional planes to Ukraine as well, so while Ukraine has suffered losses, they have been able to make good on replacing the airframes at least.

Training

Russian pilot training has taken a hit since the heyday of the USSR. With budget woes near the end of the USSR and into the post-Soviet era, pilot training was curtailed and has never fully recovered. Trainee Russian pilots, at the end of the day, get about half the flying hours of US pilots by the time they complete their training.

Even beyond training, Russian pilots do not get a lot of flying time, which is needed to maintain and improve skills over time. Russian pilots get an estimated 70 to 120 hours of flight time annually, which is roughly one-half to one-third as much as NATO member pilots get.

However, it’s been pointed out that those are official numbers provided by the Russian government and are likely inflated, as Russian media can be found, for example, congratulating one unit for reaching an average of 70 hours of flight time in that year, which would indicate that even that level of practice is unusual.

If you do the math, 70 hours of flight time over the course of a year comes to about 5.8 hours per month. Not much, and it seems likely many pilots don’t even get to that level of practice.

Russia’s pilot training and practice also appears to be reliant on scripted scenarios (they have the same problem with their ground forces). As one UK defense official commented, "For years, much of Russia's air combat training has highly likely been heavily scripted and designed to impress senior officials, rather than to develop dynamic initiative amongst aircrews.” This means that Russia’s pilots are unlikely to have the experience and initiative to react to new situations that weren’t covered by their scripted scenarios, which in turn makes them more likely to be slow to react and more vulnerable.

Air Defenses

When Russia invaded, one thing it ran into right away was Ukrainian air defenses. Russian air losses mounted pretty quickly in the first days of the war, and that undoubtedly cost Russia some of their best and most experienced pilots. Good ground-based air defense mitigated the lack of Ukrainian planes. Bringing down a jet doesn’t require another jet, and this really gets to the nub of why Russia was, and is, unable to gain air superiority over Ukraine. The Soviet-era S-300 system is considered a very good ground-to-air defense system, and Ukraine has been receiving an increasing number of western air defense systems as well since the war began. The result is that airspace over Ukraine has become more, not less, dangerous over time for Russian pilots.

And like the vulnerability of Russian tanks to highly portable weapon systems like the Javelin, there are lots of portable anti-air missiles like the Stinger. Though lacking in the range and accuracy of bigger systems, any low-flying Russian plane is potentially subject to being brought down by a missile carried by a Ukrainian soldier in the field. It’s another case of a portable weapon costing a few tens of thousands of dollars being able to bring down an asset worth tens of millions of dollars — and it’s pilot, meaning that not only is the airframe lost, but the pilot’s experience as well.

Friendly Fire

Yes, friendly fire. A surprising number of Russian planes have been either brought down by, or had close calls with, Russian air defense systems. An analysis by RUSI of the first few months of the invasion determined that “Russian air defenses have regularly engaged friendly aircraft,” continuing that this “likely reflects Russian troops largely conducting scripted exercises rather than free-play force-on-force activities where they are used to dealing with ambiguities on the battlefield.” If you recall, I mentioned those “scripted exercises” when talking about pilot training above.

In fact, early in the invasion, Russian friendly fire brought down a Russian SU-34M fighter-bomber, a new top-end modern aircraft of which Russia probably had less than a dozen of at the time.

This may mean that Russia is reluctant to commit air resources, not just because of the risk of Ukrainian air defenses, but a high level of risk of losing planes and pilots to the incompetence of their own forces.

Technology

The Russian air force, like it’s other forces, seems to be suffering from a lack of cutting-edge tech. Russian planes have been downed and found to literally have commercial GPS units taped to their consoles because the plane itself lacked such navigational gear. One veteran pilot flying for Wagner who captured after his plane was shot down over Ukraine admitted his plane was using such a commercial GPS unit for guidance.

Other high-end components may also be lacking. Some Russian planes have been found to be lacking functional IFF (Identification Friend Foe) equipment that would tell Russian forces whether the plane was Ukrainian or Russian (and also helps explain some of those friendly fire incidents mentioned above). Still other planes have been recovered that have been found to have components still wrapped in plastic and tape, making it clear that they were either never installed properly or at least never used by the pilot.

With sanctions, it’s unlikely that maintenance of Russian planes has improved.

Because of the large number of planes Russia had at the start of the invasion, coupled with it’s subsequent reluctance to commit air resources, it is not suffering nearly the same level of attrition as the Russian army’s armored units, so we’re not going to be seeing WW2 era Yak-3’s showing up in Ukrainian airspace (probably). But that doesn’t mean Russia’s fleet of planes isn’t lacking.

Lack of Pilots?

There is some speculation that Russia may be literally just lacking trained bodies to put into cockpits. Or that it could be possible that Russian pilots, not being completely suicidal, are aware of the things I’ve highlighted above and are refusing to fly into Ukrainian airspace (a trained pilot, being a difficult person to replace, probably has more leverage in such a situation than some ground-pounding conscript from the Siberian backwoods). The pre-invasion Russian air force was estimated to have something on the order of 4,500 pilots, but only a fraction of those would be trained for attack aircraft while the rest would be flying support craft. Ukraine has noted an increase in very young and very old pilots being shot down, indicating that Russia may be both sending increasingly inexperienced pilots into the cockpit, and recalling or enticing older pilots to climb back into the cockpit well after their service had ended. Last May, 63-year old retired Russian Maj. General Kanamat Botashev was killed when his SU-25 was brought down by a Stinger missile during a ground attack mission. To be fair, Botashev had a reputation as a hot-dogger and bender of rules, so perhaps his still piloting in a combat zone at his age shouldn’t have too much read into it. Except that Ukraine has documented other older pilots being shot down as well.

Summary

This isn’t intended to be an end-all and be-all explanation of why Russia hasn’t gained air superiority, but rather to give some possible reasons why this may be so. All the above factors likely play a part in the situation, and there may be some components I’m missing. If you think there’s something I’ve overlooked, feel free to throw it down in the comments!

Very quickly after the invasion started, Russia pulled it’s air force back and for the most part, Russian pilots very rarely enter Ukrainian air space. Russian bombers usually drop their payloads while still well on “their” side of the front lines. This gives them better protection from Ukrainian air defenses, but at the same time diminishes their accuracy and usefulness relative to if they were to get closer to their target before releasing.

Instead of precision bombing, Russia appears to be falling back on it’s dwindling cruise missile supply and Iranian drones to hit targets, but those are mostly aimed at cities and civilian infrastructure. One thing Russia really is not getting from its air force to a significant degree is front-line ground support.

In any case, it’s clear that Russia still, more than a year into the invasion, does not hold any type of air superiority over Ukrainian airspace, nor does it appear likely that it ever will.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/4/5/2162118/-Why-the-Russians-can-t-gain-air-superiority-in-Ukraine

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