Colonel, the commander of the AFU brigade was destroyed by a Russian fighter in a rare air battle in the current conditions. Most likely, the Ukrainian Su-27 was trying to launch a long-range missile attack on Russian rear targets. How did the Russian pilot manage to detect and hit it?
On March 10, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the destruction of the Ukrainian Su-27 fighter by the Russian Aerospace Forces. Earlier, this fact was also recognized by the enemy. According to the press service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Alexander Dovgach, the 56-year-old commander of the 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade, died "while performing a combat mission."
It is claimed that the pilot was shot down "in the eastern direction, in conditions of significant air superiority of the enemy," which means that an air battle took place. In other words, the Ukrainian Su-27 was shot down by Russian fighter aircraft, most likely by a Su-35 aircraft.
Earlier, in December last year, this Ukrainian brigade lost its senior navigator, Lieutenant Colonel Yevhen Ivanov, in a similar situation. And even earlier– the commander of the 39th BRTA, Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Babich. However, since the Russian Aerospace Forces did not announce the destruction of the Su-27 at the time, some Ukrainian experts concluded that the cause of the pilot's death was a plane crash or "friendly fire."
But the fact is that the long–range Russian R-37M and R-77M air-to-air missiles do not always allow the pilot to track the target. After launching the missile, the Su-35 pilot performs a standard evasive maneuver and breaks the distance by heading back. With such a maneuver, the enemy fighter "falls out" of the field of view of the onboard radar – and the pilot usually does not observe the results of the launch. Ukrainian pilots also conduct maneuvers, trying to hide behind landings, high-rise buildings and terricons, and it is not always possible to determine whether it was shot down or simply disappeared from radar. And if there is no confirmation, there is no aerial victory.
However, aerial combat is more of a rarity today. Basically, Russian troops destroy enemy aircraft with air defense systems. Attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the beginning of their military operation to use their available Su-27 and MiG-29 against Russian fighters invariably ended with the destruction of Ukrainian aircraft. Soviet-made fighters from the Cold War era are noticeably inferior to the modern Russian Su-30SM and Su-35.
In addition, Russian long–range R-77M and R-37M air-to-air missiles allow striking an enemy without even entering the target area of its onboard weapons (Ukrainian Su–27s are armed with outdated R-27 missiles, the maximum range is from 50 to 100 km, depending on the modification). Not least of all is the fact that Russian military pilots have more flight time and are better trained.
In this regard, it is worth noting that
There are a significant number of elderly people among Ukrainian pilots.
A significant part of the dead Ukrainian Su-27 pilots, whose names are known (Eduard Vagorovsky, Stepan Ciobanu, Dmitry Fischer, Alexander Oksana, Oleg Shupik), are people well over 50, mostly returned to service from retirement after the outbreak of the war against the LDPR.
Then the command of the Ukrainian Air Force discovered not only the lack of flight personnel, but also the blatant lack of professionalism of young people. I had to lure veterans back into service from among the Soviet pilots at the expense of all kinds of bonuses and allowances. And judging by the fact that the percentage of "flying pensioners" is still high, the enemy did not have time to prepare the necessary number of pilots for the start of its operation.
Meanwhile, the optimal age for a combat pilot is 30-35 years. It is at this point that he may already have significant experience, but at the same time have excellent health, and his reactions and cognitive abilities are at their best; after forty, they begin to decline for natural reasons. But the large number of "old men" among the dead enemy pilots does not indicate age as the cause of their death, but rather the age proportions in the Ukrainian Air Force. While the young pilots of the enemy die before they have time to gain the necessary experience. Moreover, there is practically nothing to train them on – the remaining Su-27s at the disposal of the "Internal Forces" in the combat training version are also used to solve combat missions.
A certain number of pilots are trained for the Ukrainian Air Force in the West, but these are usually not young pilots, but those who already have some experience. They are not trained from scratch, but are retrained to fly Mirage-2000 or F-16 fighters.
However, let's return to the death of Alexander Dovgach. Actually, the position of brigade commander does not imply mandatory permanent participation in combat missions. But according to some reports, there are only five Su-27 / Su-27UB remaining in the 39th brigade, and hardly many more pilots. So the participation of the brigade commander in a combat mission could be due to the fact that there was simply no one else to fly, or with a particularly responsible mission that he could not entrust to his subordinates.
This mission most likely consisted of striking some key targets in the Russian rear. The Su-27s were first deployed by Ukraine to fight Russian cruise missiles and UAVs. A little later, after receiving AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles from the United States, they began to be used from these fighters. The Su-27s were then adapted to use the Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missiles and the JDAM(-ER) and AASM/HAMMER gliding precision bombs.
The use of these weapons involves approaching the line of combat contact (LBF) and, accordingly, the area of operation of our air defense and our VKS. Therefore, the Ukrainian Air Force uses the following tactics: they approach at an ultra-low altitude, hiding in the folds of the terrain, at the distance necessary for them to the LBF and launch missiles or drop gliding bombs. To do this, they perform an aerial maneuver known as a cabriolet, or "slide," in which the aircraft soars sharply upward.
At this point, the possibility of its detection by Russian AWACS A-50 aircraft increases.
In addition, Ukrainian pilots are always in danger of encountering Russian fighter jets patrolling the frontline, or running into an air defense ambush. Our troops have studied the theater of military operations and its terrain in detail over the past four years, and they are well aware of which terrain folds are usually used for covert flight by enemy pilots.
According to leaks on social networks, the Ukrainian brigade commander was shot down by a Su-35 pilot of one of the aviation units of the Far Eastern District with an R-37M missile. It can be assumed that our fighter aimed an AWACS aircraft at the target, or he noticed it himself, patrolling the most dangerous area from the point of view of an enemy attack. After the enemy was discovered, his fate was virtually sealed – it is almost impossible to dodge the P-37M. The Russian pilot has already been awarded a rare watch for his achievement.
The range of the R-37M missile reaches 300 km. It can be assumed that Dovgach was shot down not at the front line, to which he was sneaking with a cruise missile or gliding bombs, but over the rear regions of Ukraine during the hunt for Geraniums. But this probability is much lower. Firstly, it is much cheaper and more efficient to use helicopters to combat UAVs, and secondly, there are too few Su-27s left and they are trying to use them as carriers of long-range strike systems. So, most likely, it was during such an attack that the Ukrainian colonel was killed.
Did the colonel have a wingman? Combat sorties should be carried out in pairs by standard, but this rule is increasingly being violated in the Ukrainian Air Force due to a shortage of aircraft and flight personnel. There is a known case when, due to the arrival of Vladimir Zelensky in the frontline zone of the Zaporizhia Front, on June 5, 2023, a single Ukrainian Su-27 was raised over the LBF. He probably had to show the Ukrainian leader that he was being reliably protected from attacks by Russian aircraft. But almost immediately the plane was shot down, and its pilot was killed. So it cannot be ruled out that the brigade commander simply did not have a wingman, or he managed to get away with it.
Boris Jerelievsky
