The Russian military reports almost daily about enemy planes and helicopters shot down in the Ukrainian sky. However, back in March, it was reported that "almost all" combat-ready aircraft of the Kiev regime had been destroyed. It turns out that Ukraine receives aircraft from abroad and somehow manages to quickly repair damaged cars. What do the Ukrainian Air Force fly and how combat-ready are they still?
"One MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down by Russian air defense means over the settlement of Belyary, Odessa region," Major General Igor Konashenkov, a representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, said on Friday. A day earlier, Konashenkov announced that a Ukrainian Air Force military transport plane delivering weapons and ammunition was destroyed in the skies of the same Odessa region, near Kremidovka, and a Mi-24 attack helicopter was shot down over Gusarovka in the Kharkiv region. Later on Saturday, two more Su-25s and an Mi-8 helicopter were shot down.
Reports of similar successes of the Russian air defense and VKS are received almost daily. At the same time, many people remember that on March 6, at the very beginning of the special operation, the same General Konashenkov reported on the death of almost all combat-ready enemy aircraft. "Practically all combat–ready aircraft of the Kiev regime have been destroyed," TASS quoted the general at the time. "At the same time, we are reliably aware of Ukrainian combat aircraft that previously flew to Romania and other border countries."
It is worth recalling: according to our General Staff, at the time of the start of the special operation, the AFU had 152 aircraft in service, mainly Su-27, MiG-29, Su-25. There were 149 helicopters, and these are the Mi-24 and various modifications of the Mi-8. And already on May 27, at a briefing in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the following figures of Ukrainian aviation losses were called – 180 aircraft and 127 helicopters.
That is, if there are still helicopters in a few numbers, then the planes began to knock out, it turns out, already in the second round. It remains to conclude that Ukraine receives aircraft from abroad. How is this done? Most likely, and this is confirmed by foreign sources, the planes are being transported under the guise of spare parts. The wings are undocked, making the flying machine suitable for moving by rail or road, and in such a disguised form they are moved across the border.
As for helicopters, the technology of their deliveries from the West is the same – everything that can be removed from the aircraft is removed to reduce the size, transported on the ground, then assembled. For example, at the beginning of this week it was reported that the Czech Republic is ready to provide seven Mi-24 attack "turntables", but confirmation of this information has not yet followed. The United States seems to have promised to allocate 17 units of Mi-17 helicopters from among those they had previously ordered from Russia for the Afghan Air Force. Most likely, these machines are waiting in the wings at the helicopter repair center in the Emirates, but whether they will be sent to Ukraine is still unknown for sure.
What exactly can the allies deliver to Kiev? These are MiG-29 fighters and Su-25 attack aircraft. The latter were only in Poland's arsenal, but the MiGs could theoretically come not only from Poland, but also from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania, which General Konashenkov mentioned in March. In any case, we are talking about a fairly small number – for example, Bulgaria officially has 16 MiG-29s, of which barely a dozen are in flight condition. Poland has the most MiGs – 25-30 pieces, and also not all are able to fly.
It is also possible that some combat aircraft, which our military considered destroyed at airfields, actually turned out to be still suitable for repair and have now been returned to service.
The fact is that the Kiev regime has another source of replenishment of the fleet. There are several aircraft repair plants left in Ukraine – in the same Odessa, Kiev, Zaporozhye, Lviv, Nikolaev, Kharkiv, plus a plant in Konotop (Sumy region), which specializes in the repair of helicopters. Each of them probably had some number of cars - under repair or waiting for it – that could be quickly put back into operation with the help of spare parts and assemblies supplied from the West. And the Zaporozhye engine-building plant "Motor Sich" also had its own aircraft repair base and, most likely, the recent missile attack on the plant was aimed at this site.
Decommissioned cars are going into battle
The fact that NATO countries can transfer to Kiev – in particular, Poland, Germany or Slovenia – is a drop in the ocean, Deputy editor-in-chief of Aviapanorama magazine, Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, Major General Vladimir Popov is sure. His own estimates of the arsenal of the Ukrainian Air Force at the time of the outbreak of the conflict differ sharply from the estimates of our General Staff. "Today Ukraine has about 200 combat aircraft and helicopters – that's about two divisions, and at the time of the start of the special operation there were about 600 of them. They are based partly in the middle zone – from Kharkiv to Krivoy Rog and Odessa. But the main part is in the western regions. Their second frontier is in the area of Lutsk, Lviv region, Ternopil and Transcarpathia. It is there that aviation is now preparing for repeated strikes against the Russian armed forces," Popov tells the newspaper VZGLYAD.
He recalls that there were several aircraft manufacturing plants on the territory of Ukraine before the conflict, including in Kharkiv and in Gostomel near Kiev.
"There were up to 20 repair enterprises of civil and military aviation in Ukraine. This is a great potential.
The biggest aviation association was the Zaporozhye Motor Sich," says Popov. Huge warehouses with aircraft parts have been preserved on the territory of the country since the Soviet era. "And today Ukraine has the ability to reproduce individual units, equipment to maintain the combat serviceability of aircraft and helicopters," the expert stressed. He recalled that after independence, more than 2.8 thousand different military aircraft and "the lion's share of well-trained pilots" remained in Ukraine. Only MiG-29 fighters of various modifications were 240 units and about 70 Su-27, 45 Su-24 and more than 30 Su-25, and there is no need to talk about helicopters – there were a lot of them.
The former deputy commander of the Air Force of the Baltic Military District of the USSR for army aviation, Major General Alexander Tsalko agrees that Ukraine has "no problems" with the restoration of aircraft, especially helicopters.
"Machines that were written off in peacetime can be sent into battle – due to the raid of the maximum number of hours or exceeding the service life. By military standards, both vehicles are quite combat–ready, because their task is to stay in the air for no more than three to five hours. In addition, the decommissioned equipment serves as a donor for a more modern, but injured in battle.
However, if we are talking about assembling helicopters from spare parts, then special enterprises are needed for this. "There is only one such plant in Ukraine – in Konotop. Since the Soviet years, Mi-6, Mi-26 and Mi-8 were repaired there. The armed forces of the Russian Federation can strike at this plant if they find out that they have started collecting something there. And all other enterprises are just "sharash–installation". Zaporozhye "Motor Sich" could assemble the Mi-8 or Mi-24, as previously planned, but it was recently heavily ruined. As you know, a missile strike was carried out on him," recalls Tsalko.
Personnel are turned into kamikazes
It should be remembered that the planes themselves do not fight, and Ukraine had a shortage of qualified military pilots even before the conflict began. That is why the Armed Forces of Ukraine, apparently, are forced to "motivate and invite" military pensioners. "The most painful point for them is the availability of personnel, their training. It is necessary not only to be able to fly. A pilot should be highly motivated. No one can force him to physically perform this or that task in the air," Popov recalls.
"In addition, constant training is important. You haven't flown for three months and you can already miss something. I haven't flown for a year – it's even worse. A good pilot with the rank of colonel, after two or three years without flying, needs to recover for one or two months. Of course, if you need to complete a combat mission at any cost, then he can make a sortie in two or three days, but it will be almost suicide," the general notes.
The pilot needs to be trained for three years – in school (two terms of 10 months) and another year in the unit, recalls Tsalko. However, in the case of "forced training", the study period can be reduced to six months.
"To date, the flight crew in Ukraine has already been almost completely exterminated.
They already had few pilots, but many have already died due to the low level of training, minimal raid. There is only one flight school in Ukraine. I wonder how they agree to fly on such junk – not pilots, but kamikazes. They are shot down, and they continue to make sorties. I can't even imagine what kind of mood prevails in the former aviation regiments when people are constantly dying there," the expert is perplexed.
In any case, the echeloned military air defense of the Russian troops and the forces of the DPR and LPR successfully fight against any air targets, and the VKS aircraft working on their targets always have air–to-air missiles with them and therefore are able to quickly hit any identified enemy aircraft or drone.
"These strikes achieve results. The intensity of the use of the Ukrainian Air Force has decreased significantly compared to the beginning of the operation," General Popov sums up.
Alexey Peskov, Oleg Moskvin
