Yesterday, a Russian drone spotted six Sukhoi Su-27 fighters of the Ukrainian Air Force parked in broad sunlight on the runway of the Mirgorod air base in northern Ukraine, a hundred miles from the border with Russia.
A Russian Iskander ballistic missile hit and destroyed two of the valuable supersonic fighters, five percent of Ukraine’s total Su-27 fleet.
Today anything happened. A Russian drone flew over Ukraine’s Poltava air base, just east of Mirgorod and also a hundred miles from the border. After hours of surveillance, an Iskander missile hit, damaging or even destroying a Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunship of the Ukrainian army.
What is happening is obvious. The lack of air defense exposes Ukrainian air bases to attacks by Russian drones and missiles. Russian attacks on Ukrainian bases have intensified since last fall. So far, those strikes have destroyed two Su-27 fighters, two Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters, a Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft and potentially the Mi-24.
The losses are not sustainable for the Ukrainian Air Force and the Air Brigades of the Ukrainian Army. The Air Force has only a few dozen MiGs and Sukhois and no apparent source of replacements. The army has about fifty Mi-24s, but it may also have a hard time obtaining them. More examples.
Yes, the Air Force is about to get 85 Lockheed Martin F-16s and a dozen Dassault Mirage 2000s from its European allies. But those new aircraft will be as grounded as the MiGs, Sukhois, and Mils.
This is an air defense crisis. Normally, the Ukrainians would protect their most vital bases with layers of surface-to-air missiles. But the Ukrainian air force and army are struggling to cover cities, major troop concentrations, and frontline bases such as the airfields in Mírgorod and Poltava.
The figures underscore the scale of the problem. Between them, the Ukrainian army and air force have started a wider war with some 400 surface-to-air missile systems. Twenty-eight months later, the Ukrainians have lost about 140 of those systems and have acquired about a hundred as replacements.
In theory, the Ukrainians have lost only 10% of their pre-war air defense forces. But this force is much less necessary than before February 2022. Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, targeting apartment buildings, hospitals and even churches, have forced the Ukrainian military to concentrate its most productive air defenses around larger cities.
These systems had to come from somewhere. It is clear that by prioritizing air coverage of cities, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have left their airfields less protected. The Russian drone monitoring Poltava was visual on the ground through the Ukrainians for 3 hours before the Iskander missile hit. Obviously, no one had any way to defeat him.
Let’s be clear: the Russians have the same problem. They are also struggling to protect their air bases from Ukrainian missiles and drones. The difference is that Russia has more bases and more aircraft, and it can absorb greater losses.
The United States has planned a $2. 3 billion aid package, expected in mid-July, that would include air defense systems, adding long-range Patriot missiles and medium-range NASAMS missiles.
But it is conceivable that these new defenses will also end up protecting cities instead of air bases. “You have to make sure you have air defenses to review to protect the spaces that you’re investing in,” the U. S. Secretary of State said. of the State Antony Blinken.
The Ukrainians tried to fill the void by forming short-range air defense groups equipped with trucks armed with cannons. If groups were provided around Mirgorod and Poltava, they either didn’t realize that Russian drones were flying overhead or couldn’t touch them.
Sources:
1. War Vehicle Tracker: https://x. com/WarVehicle/status/1808218837063721464; https://x. com/WarVehicle/status/1808171970237780212
2. Oryx: https://www. oryxspioenkop. com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-ukrainian. html; https://www. oryxspioenkop. com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied. html
3. CBS News: https://www. cbsnews. com/news/u-s-2-3-billion-in-military-assistance-for-ukraine/
4. Antonio Blinken: https://x. com/EuromaidanPress/status/1808161413342384368
A community. Many voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
Our network aims to connect other people through open and thoughtful conversations. We need our readers to share their perspectives and exchange ideas and facts in one space.
To do so, please comply with the posting regulations in our site’s terms of use. Below we summarize some of those key regulations. In short, civilians.
Your message will be rejected if we realize that it seems to contain:
User accounts will be blocked if we become aware that users are engaged in:
So, how can you be a user?
Thank you for reading our Community Standards. Read the full list of publication regulations discovered in our site’s terms of use.