The Russian air force has intensified its activity on the Ukraine war’s front line to try to capitalise on the victory at Avdiivka, the eastern city that Moscow’s forces captured last month. After a long period of avoiding threats from Ukrainian air defence, the tactic has proven risky: Kyiv’s forces have shot down several enemy aircraft in recent weeks.
Russia’s air force is in trouble in the skies over Ukraine. In the last two weeks of February, Kyiv said it shot down 14 aircraft, including several Sukhoi Su-34 and Su-35 fighter-bombers. Add the two Beriev A-50 detection and command craft that Kyiv felled a few weeks apart and the toll looks heavier still for Moscow.
Kyiv’s figures could not be independently verified. But as with any such claims of success, Ukraine has “every interest in trumpeting it and presenting it in the most spectacular way possible”, says author and independent defence consultant Marc Chassillan. “It's all part of war propaganda and the Ukrainians would be wrong not to use it, since it contributes strongly to the morale of soldiers and the population.”
Military experts agree on one fact: Russian sorties have increased significantly in recent weeks. After suffering heavy losses during the first month of the invasion, the Russian air force had long kept its distance from the Western anti-aircraft defences deployed by Ukraine. But Russia now appears to be putting its pilots at greater risk to support infantry on the ground.
"To achieve their victory at Avdiivka, the Russians strengthened the role of the air force, and they're trying to keep up the momentum," says General Dominique Trinquand, the former head of the French military mission to the UN. "Naturally, the more planes in the sky, the more opportunities there are to shoot them down. What’s more, when pilots provide ground support, they are forced to descend in altitude, a vulnerability that the Ukrainians are probably taking advantage of."
If this Russian air effort is costly, it also seems to be paying off for ground troops on the front line. By approaching targets as closely as possible, Moscow's air force is increasing the effectiveness of the powerful glide bombs fitted to its Sukhoi fighters. These guided munitions, capable of flying long distances to the front lines, have reduced the risk of Russian aircraft being shot down. Dropped precisely, they can easily destroy the underground bunkers sheltering Ukrainian soldiers.
"Before the war, the Russian air force was not known for using guided missiles on the same massive scale as Western air forces. In fact, the Russians had a huge stock of standard bombs known as FABs. They grafted small airfoils onto them and added guidance kits to make them much more precise," explains Chassillan. "These bombs weigh between 200 and 500 kilograms. When they hit the ground, they do a lot of damage."
“These bombs completely destroy any position,” Egor Sugar, a Ukrainian soldier who fought at Avdiivka and is active on social networks, wrote in an X post on February 16. “All buildings and structures simply turn into a pit after the arrival of just one.”
Ukraine has reported its own boosted effort in the air, even if its ammunition stockpile is much more limited than Russia’s. In a video published on Monday, Kyiv claims to have dropped a French-made AASM Hammer glide bomb on a Russian supply depot at Kozachi Laheri on the left bank of the Dnieper River, one of several Hammers it has dropped on enemy positions in recent days.
While the higher number of Russian aircraft above Ukraine partly explains the rise in shot-down planes, Kyiv may also have taken "the risk of deploying Patriot missile launchers close to the front lines to engage Russian fighter jets", said Justin Bronk, a researcher with the Royal United Services Institute, a military and security think-tank in London, to the BBC.
Of all the air defence systems supplied by the West since the start of Russia’s invasion, the Patriot is considered one of the most sophisticated – and expensive.
The deployment of one in eastern Ukraine is unlikely, according to Trinquand, because "the Ukrainians have very few and need them to protect their cities, especially Kyiv”, he explains. “In addition, aircraft that attack targets on the ground are more vulnerable to short-range anti-aircraft artillery, such as the French SATCP system or the American Stinger.”
Interviewed by the Kyiv Post, the Austrian analyst Tom Cooper put forward another hypothesis: the navigation systems of the Sukhoi Su-34 and Su-35 could have been hacked to make them easy prey for Ukrainian anti-aircraft defences.
"When a Russian plane crashes, the Ukrainians are quick to recover everything they can, especially the electronics, which can provide clues about how to deceive Russian pilots," says Chassillan. "All modern combat aircraft have warning systems that alert them as soon as they are 'illuminated', meaning spotted by radar. A virus or jamming system could render this warning system inoperative. So Russian pilots think they are flying calmly in the sky but are in fact being targeted by a missile."
Russia ‘looking for the breaking point’
Moscow seems determined to capitalise on its victory at Avdiivka, even if it means sacrificing several pilots and Sukhoi jets that cost around $85 million per craft.
“Russian forces appeared to tolerate an increased rate of aviation losses in recent weeks in order to conduct glide bomb strikes in support of ongoing Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine,” said The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank, in an analysis published on March 3.
"After the victory at Avdiivka, the Russians realise that Ukraine has not prepared its defensive positions well, so they want to seize the opportunity to push Kyiv's forces," says Trinquand.
"The Russians are looking for the breaking point," agrees Chassillan. "They don't want to give the Ukrainians time to entrench. And so they continue to harass and chase them so they can't build a strong line of defence."
But can Russia afford its costly strategy over time? British military intelligence claims that Russia still possesses seven more A-50s, but that it had "most likely grounded the fleet from flying" to avoid further losses. According to the Ukrainians, air activity has decreased significantly since the end of last week.
In theory, the Russian air force still has room to manoeuvre. It had a fleet of 1,500 military aircraft before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, and according to estimates, Russia has lost around 150 aircraft or helicopters since. Some analysts say Russia’s defence industry should be able to replace some of its losses by the end of the year. As reported by the TASS news agency, Rostec boss Sergei Chemezov said last week that the defence conglomerate would resume production of the A-50 "because the Russian armed forces need it".
Despite the increased number of Russian aircraft shot down in recent days, the toll is nowhere near levels seen in some previous high-intensity wars, says Chassillan.
"We have forgotten this, but in eight years of war, the Americans lost 5,000 planes and helicopters in Vietnam, that's two or three a day. During the Yom Kippur War, in three weeks of fighting, 500 planes were destroyed or shot down, on both the Israeli and Arab sides," explains the defence expert. "But today, when a plane is shot down, it's always a big event in Western armed forces, simply because they've lost the habit of waging war".
This article is a translation of the original in French.
