Why the complacent Russian Air Force has not managed to get control of the Ukrainian sky

The reasons why Russia has not yet gained control of air have been the subject of violent debates since Moscow started rocket attacks on Ukrainian early warning radars.

In view of the impressive firepower of the approximately 300 modern combat aircraft, which the Russian aviation and space forces in the region have ready, why did they appear so little?

The opinion of many in the West may have been influenced by the unusual circumstances of the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, where allied air forces have not met with any serious resistance.

It is easy to forget that, in order to say it with the words of Andy Netherwood, a former RAF pilot, "the air is normally just like the country.

The control of the air, which is essential when missions are to be started on the ground without offering light goals to the enemy, is rarely simple, absolutely or permanent. Even with considerable exceeding, it takes time and effort to achieve it. The advantage of maintaining is also difficult because soil units learn from past clashes and adapt their tactics.

"Russia was also disabled by complacent and arrogant planning in the air area as in the country," said Netherwood. "The Russian Air Force has very little combat experience except in Syria recently. You don't really know how good an Air Force is until it has to wage a war ... [it is] not impressive."

Of course there were Ukrainian losses. On Tuesday morning it was announced that Colonel Oleksandr "Gray Wolf" Oksanchenko, from 2013 to 2018, was killed by the Ukrainian Air Force pilot when his jet was shot down on Friday evening.

Technical reasons could also contribute to the relatively clear sky. According to Justin Bronk, an air -strength specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, the Russian Air Force has much less experience in dealing with precision -driven ammunition (PGM).

in a new newspaper, The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force, wrote Mr. Bronk: "During the fighting on Syria, only the SU-34 fleet regularly used PGMS, and even these specialized fighter planes have regularly used bombing and rocket attacks.

"This not only indicates a very limited familiarity with PGMs in most Russian fighting crews, but also confirms the widely accepted theory that the Russian PGM supply is very limited."

Russian SU-34 bombers, which have so far not been sighted in the war, were seen on Monday via Kharkiw, which experts refer to as an aggressive use of the Air Force.

The Russian air monitoring of destinations was incomplete throughout the current campaign.

Satellite images of the commercial satellite company Planet showed that between 22nd and 27th February several rockets ended up at the Air Force base Ozerne, 100 km west of Kiev. Although at least six impact points can be seen, nobody is on the main slope or probably the ability of the Ukrainian Air Force to have impaired to further use the location.

It is also assumed that Russian jet's target capsules are missing that are used to identify and identify goals, which means that the ability to correctly identify and support floor troops if they fight against Ukrainian units is limited. Fooling unclosed ammunition in such situations would increase the risk of making your own troops and increasing the likelihood of civilian victims.

This means that the leadership of the Air Force "could hesitate to use the majority of its potential clout against Ukrainian troops before political approval for the use of unlinkled ammunition is granted to the bombing of Ukrainian urban areas," said Bronk.

he added: "This indiscriminately form of the air raid was common practice in Russian and Syrian air weapons via Aleppo and Homs and will unfortunately probably be used by the [Russian Aerospace Forces] via Ukraine in the coming days."

Mr. Bronk warned that in less than a week we “could easily become a lengthy campaign” and said that the Russian Air Force had the power to be “very destroyed” [that] in the coming days.