Brandon J. Weichert
Western media reports on the ongoing Ukraine War have typically lionized the capabilities of the Ukrainian side, while downplaying the strengths of the Russians. Hence it has come as a surprise to some observers that Ukraine’s NATO-donated F-16s have mostly been ineffective against the Russian Su-35—with the spokesman of the Ukrainian Air Force even admitting candidly in 2023 that the F-16s were “outdated” and “cannot counter” the Russian fourth-generation++ warplane.
Russia Has Adapted, And NATO Has Not
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it was widely derided in the Western press for relying on inferior Soviet-era equipment. Indeed, the Russian army’s failures in the opening days of the conflict came at least in part from relying on such equipment against the modern munitions provided to Ukraine by NATO—most notably the Javelin missile.
But in all wars, adaptation is key—and Russia has spent the last three years remedying the inadequacies of their older Soviet equipment and augmenting it after many hard lessons learned in the killing fields of eastern Ukraine. War is a dynamic enterprise, and whatever systems are used at the start of a conflict—especially if that conflict drags on as the war in Ukraine has—means that the military must adapt their systems constantly based upon battlefield experience. Russia has done this. Ukraine, dependent on modern NATO systems, mostly has not—with predictable results in combat. Moreover, Moscow has married its war-time defense industrial base to the need for constant adaptation of equipment.
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