Russia’s air force has underperformed in Moscow’s war on Ukraine, suffering notable losses of some key aircraft. Air parity, not air superiority, remains the status between the adversaries, a situation that Ukraine needs to sustain.
As Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine heads into its third year, shortcomings within the country’s Aerospace Forces (VKS) are becoming ever more apparent. The VKS has failed to gain air superiority against a numerically inferior opponent, has insufficient intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, lacks adequate numbers of precision-guided weapons and has suffered meaningful losses of aircraft and attack helicopters. The bottom line is that the VKS has often been ineffective, not inactive.
The VKS has suffered substantial losses. The Kamov Ka-52 Hokum B attack helicopter fleet lost 40% of its pre-war strength, with the Mil Mi-35 Hind and Mi-28N Havoc B inventory reduced too, even if less severely. Russia’s inventory of Mi-8MTPR-1 Hip electronic warfare helicopters is also at least 20% smaller than at the outset of the fighting. Those losses, along with others, like two-seat Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter ground-attack aircraft and Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft, are reflected in the upcoming 2024 edition of The Military Balance.
Painful lessonLosses are mounting, as evidenced by Ukraine’s air defenders downing a Beriev A-50 Mainstay B airborne early warning aircraft and damaging an Ilyushin Il-22M Coot B command-post aircraft on 14 January 2024. Both represent a blow to the service in operational capacity and in morale. The IISS assesses that the VKS has only eight Mainstays left operational Last month’s losses of the high-value platforms compound the VKS’s deficiency in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collectors.
The hits to the fixed- and rotary-wing fleets have forced the VKS to change tactics to try to reduce aircraft vulnerability. The Su-34 fleet appears to be increasingly carrying glide bombs, almost certainly intended to provide a greater stand-off distance to avoid further losses at the hands of Ukrainian short-range ground-based air defences. The VKS, on occasion, has also used the aircraft to deliver the Raduga Kh-59-series of air-to-surface missile that provides considerably greater stand-off range than a glide bomb. The service, however, appears to continue to lack an adequate inventory of short- and medium-range air-launched precision-guided weapons.
Ka-52M and Mi-28NM crews, meanwhile, are now employing KBM Izdeliye 305/LMUR air-to-surface missiles that allow them to engage targets at greater range than previously available air-to-surface weapons.
Production patchesSome combat losses have been offset by production deliveries. Russian industry delivered at least six Su-34NVOs to the VKS in 2023, according to figures in The Military Balance 2024, and the air force likely received the final batch of 24 Su-34NVO aircraft ordered in June 2020. This Fullback variant appears to be an interim between the original Su-34M and a more extensive modernisation of the aircraft. The VKS also received no less than ten Su-35 Flanker M multi-role fighters in 2023, along with two two-seat Su-30SM2 Flanker Hs – an upgraded version of the Su-30SM, with an improved radar and the capacity to use a broader range of weapons. Two more were delivered to the naval aviation arm.
Deliveries of Su-57 Felon fighter ground-attack aircraft also continued. What is uncertain, though, is whether Russia will meet the target of getting the VKS more than the 70 planned Su-57s by 2027, given production rates and pressure on the defence aerospace industrial base from the Russia–Ukraine war. The high utilisation rates of some tactical aircraft types are also increasing demand on maintenance and support, placing further stress on industry.
Russia also is facing pressure on its weapons stocks, having, for instance, run down its pre-war stock of Raduga Kh-101 (RS-AS-23A Kodiak) conventionally armed long-range land-attack missiles. A serial number, if genuine, stencilled on the side of a recently used Kh-101 suggests it was manufactured only in the fourth quarter of 2023. If correct, then the missile went straight from the Raduga production site to the frontline.
The pressure on industry appears acute. Senior Russian military officials recently visited guided weapons manufacturer Tactical Missiles Corporation to discuss production rates and to stress the importance of both sustaining and increasing deliveries to the air force.
The VKS has underperformed and endured high losses, but it is tactically adapting. Russia still faces the challenge of increasing missile production to sustain its efforts. For Kyiv, this all means that it needs to continue to impose losses to prevent the VKS gaining the upper hand in the air domain.
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