Combat aviation was one of several heavy items on the agenda when Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyi visited Warsaw on Wednesday. In March, Poland decided to be the first NATO country to assist Ukraine with four fighter jets of the Mig-29 type. Another ten will be delivered shortly, was Wednesday’s message from President Andrzej Duda.
Zelenskyj thanked for the support, but also expressed hopes that Poland, together with other countries, would form a coalition to contribute even more plans.
Germany has previously taken the initiative for a similar scheme, then applying tanks of the Leopard type.
“Has failed completely”
The addition of Polish fighter jets means a boost for the Ukrainian Air Force, but to measure up to Russia’s numbers requires much more than that.
– Russia has between 1,000 and 1,500 combat aircraft. Then probably quite a few of them are in bad condition. Ukraine, on the other hand, had 100 to 120 planes when the war started and is perhaps down to 60 or 70 now, says Mikael Grev, former fighter pilot and CEO of the company Avioniq.
At the outbreak of war, many believed that the numerical superiority would mean Russian air supremacy, but that has not been the case.
– There are many who wonder how they could have succeeded so poorly. They completely failed to wage an air war.
Air defenses effective
The explanation lies largely in the Ukrainian air defense. The risk of being shot down is too great for Russian planes to venture too far into Ukrainian territory, Grev explains, adding that the same can be said about the opposite side.
– As it seems now, there is probably no one who will get air supremacy. Both sides have a lot of anti-aircraft.
However, the air defense does not mean that the fighter planes are completely ineffective. During the course of the war, Ukraine invested in carrying out so-called “needle strikes” – often associated with great risks for the pilots.
Hear Mikael Grev talk about the Ukrainian tactics in the clip above.