One of the reasons for the slow progress of the Ukrainian counterattack has been considered to be their lack of air superiority. And it will not be achieved without advanced fighters, such as the American F-16 fighters.
During the current year, fighter jets have been promised to Ukraine along with other Western arms deliveries, but the experts who appeared in public do not consider them to be miracles either.
interviewed a Ukrainian in Kyiv Mihailo Samusta, who serves as director of the New Geopolitics research network. He completely disagrees with the importance of fighter jets in war.
– They completely change the course of the war. Getting them is insanely important, Samus says.
According to him, with the armament of fighters, such as certain types of precision bombs, Ukraine will be able to affect further and precisely the depth of Russian forces.
– Even one squadron (9-12 aircraft) changes the situation a lot. In certain areas, it is enough to paralyze Russian air traffic.
The Russians have so-called flying bombs that can fly 50-60 kilometers to their target. According to Samus, they are copies of similar American bombs.
They are still a serious threat to the Ukrainian ground forces, as it is difficult to counter them due to the speed of the flying bombs. Fighting these with F-16 fighters would also be easier, because flying bombs are usually launched from fighters.
Thanks to drones, the balance of power is evened out
According to Mihailo Samus, drones have shown their power in the war between Ukraine and Russia. It has been estimated that the balance of power on the battlefield is in favor of Russia, but in naval warfare the balance is evened out thanks to Drones.
Ukraine does not have its own navy left, but Russia does. Big ships in a relatively small sea are relatively easy targets for drones.
– One corvette can cost 300 million dollars. One drone, on the other hand, costs from a few thousand to a million dollars. A corvette worth hundreds of millions can be destroyed by a few drones, so from a military point of view this is catastrophic for the enemy.
So, spend the $500 million on a submarine or drones.
At the beginning of the war, Ukraine successfully used cheap drones equipped with small explosives. However, they were able to destroy, for example, the most advanced Russian tanks costing millions of dollars, reminds Samus.
Ukraine is developing drones and aims to massively increase their number.
– One hundred thousand drones can be a catastrophic number for any enemy army, because they are cheap but accurate weapons.
“The Russians copied everything”
The only problem is that in the war, Russia constantly copies the solutions that help the Ukrainians succeed. The war in Georgia revealed that Russian troops and equipment were in a miserable condition. A massive reform of the military forces began.
– They learned from the American doctrine. They have copied technology from France, Germany and Italy, where for example they bought thousands of armored personnel carriers and copied the technology from them to their own vehicles.
Samus is sure that this kind of copy culture will soon be a problem for Western countries also in other parts of the world, such as the Baltic Sea.
– The Russians copy everything and they have the money to do it. They get 440 billion in oil and gas revenue every year.
Race against time
On the battlefield, Ukraine is getting very busy for many reasons. Winter is coming and with it, moving around becomes difficult. Samus is also afraid of what will happen if power changes in the United States with next year’s presidential election.
Now help has come, but different voices have been heard from the United States as well as from Europe. The US does not want another war in Afghanistan from Ukraine, which swallowed a huge amount of money, lasted a long time and ended in defeat.
Samui also fears that Russia will continue mobilizing in the spring, which could mean that in the fall there would already be 500,000 Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil. In any case, there are already more troops than when Russia started its attack on Ukraine.
With additional troops, it could open a new direction of attack from Belarus, which could be a big problem not only for the maintenance of Ukrainian troops, but also for the capital, Kiev.