The battle for supremacy in the air over Ukraine
An invisible but critically important battle for Ukraine is currently being waged in the air around the clock. After the appointment of the former chief of staff of the Air and Space Forces Surovikin as the commander of the United Group of Russian Forces in Ukraine, the Russian aggressors concentrated all their resources to defeat the Ukrainian air defense and aviation.
From the first day of the war, the Russians have been trying to solve this task, but now new factors of the air operation of the Russian Armed Forces are obvious:
1. The use of Iranian drones "Shakhed-136" for strikes on various cities of Ukraine, with the aim of dispersing air defense assets and constantly detecting their work. "Shahedy" are not used en masse, during one strike, their goal is the constant loading of Ukrainian air defense in various areas, reconnaissance. Therefore, strikes are carried out in small groups, every day, without breaks. This also speaks of an established supply channel from Iran.
2. Terrorist attacks on cities, residential buildings, facilities of life support and critical infrastructure, industrial enterprises in order to undermine the will of the civilian population to resist, and to force the Ukrainian command to distract and disperse the means of air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, to pull them away from the front to the rear areas. Putin used Hitler's World War II tactics against Ukraine, when the Nazis destroyed cities and struck civilian targets during the Battle of Britain to strain air defense forces.
3. Tactics. The Russian command is trying to force the Ukrainian air defense to act constantly, to show itself, to turn on radars, to disperse forces, to maneuver in order to facilitate the work of radio-electronic, space, intelligence.
4. Concentration of groups of reconnaissance and attack drones to detect and destroy in the tactical zone military air defense assets in certain directions. In some directions, the enemy began to search at a depth of 30-40 km with groups of unmanned aerial vehicles, including Lancet-3 kamikaze attack drones, in order to catch our air defense systems either on the move or in positions that have not yet had time to change.
5. MiG-31 fighters with long-range missiles taking turns in the air near the areas of action of the Ukrainian aviation.
Conclusions:
1. Currently, the supply of anti-aircraft weapons is the main priority, which is possible only at the expense of supplies from our NATO allies. Significant deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine can be made from the reserves of the US Armed Forces, which have a significant number of Patriot and Avenger air defense systems.
2. For combat in the air and the use of modern air-to-air missiles, Ukraine needs F-16 aircraft. To combat drones, the Allies could provide light rotorcraft combat aircraft such as the Embraer SuperTukano, which can be optimized to intercept targets such as the Shahed-136 and be used to strike ground targets. Such planes were supplied to Afghanistan.
3. The battle for control of the air is a key prerequisite for the strategic offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces, which, according to all indications, is being prepared by the Russian command to stop the Ukrainian offensive and seize the strategic initiative in the war.
4. Cases of damage to our air defense and air defense forces by the Russians require conclusions. We can strengthen air defense with means of camouflage, simulated models of weapons, transport, engineering support of bases in order to strengthen the concealment of actions, maneuverability, survivability.
5. Russia is actually conducting a general mobilization of the population and the economy, attracting allies with the aim of destroying Ukraine at any cost. The war will be long, so we need long-term defense planning, we need a strategy that allows us to prioritize and act in advance.
6. The most difficult thing is that we need to accept that air defense will not be able to cover all civilian objects from the actions of Russian terrorists. These constant blows will have to be learned to live with, just as the residents of London and many other places in Britain who suffered from Hitler's bombings during the Second World War did. We will stand and win as the democratic states did in that terrible time.