How many jets have Ukraine lost to drones?
Is this one sided thing, is Russia just incapable of protecting their large fleet or is this a tit for tat thing?
What is happening is that as Russian air defenses are knocked out near the frontline it creates gaps in Russian air defenses. In general Ukraine has been far more sophisticated and effective at hunting down Russian artillery and air defenses than Russia has been at hunting down Ukrainian ones.
There is no way for Russia to monitor all of its territory thoroughly with radar, and so every one of these holes in the frontlines is a window. Given Ukraine’s sophisticated long range strike capacity things are quickly tilting in Ukraine’s favor as Ukraine progressively exploits more and more of those windows.
In general Operation Spiderweb was a demonstration of the fragility of fixed wing strike aircraft, they require large static infrastructure and given the extremely long range of Ukraine’s strike drones distance away from the frontline is no protection.
It has been amusing watching people forecast the end of the helicopter and attack helicopter and one of the crucial reasons that conclusion is so comically off the mark is that helicopters are simply more survivable than fast jets as they can be resupplied and supported in the field with mobile assets, it is much harder to pin a helicopter and associated logistics down to a reliable location that can be struck with a ballistic missile or some other decisive long range strike capability. Operation Spiderweb demonstrated that fast jets are incredibly vulnerable to sabotage and long range strike given their rigid requirements for operation (long run way etc…).
I’m guessing Ukraine is being a lot more careful with their fighters, and this sort of thing is heavily tilted towards Russia.
Russia needs their jets to keep up the attack against Ukraine, and Russia has repeatedly demonstrated that they have difficulty protecting them on the ground. Just look at Operation Spiderweb last June, for example. Ukraine simultaneously attacked aircraft parked at 5 different Russian airfields. Depending on who you ask, as many as 40 aircraft were hit, with up to 13 completely destroyed.
Attacks like that one force Russia to spread out their antiaircraft radar & weapons more and more. Combine that with Ukraine successfully damaging/destroying radar systems like the one in this video and it creates gaps in Russian air defenses that makes it easier & easier for Ukraine to identify & destroy even more targets.
Depending on who you ask, as many as 40 aircraft were hit, with up to 13 completely destroyed
You’d think Russia would be thanking Ukraine for this. Spare parts are in short supply and ukraine gave them up to 27 jets for spare parts.
I’ve seen that Ukrainians got their jet (su-27?) destroyed when parked, but that was due to ballistic missiles, not drones, and 1y+ ago
Notice that also air defence radar was targeted. There’s a lot of russia and apparently not enough air defence assets, and something will slip through, some of the time
Wait a sec… you’re saying Russia didn’t use one of their ballistic missiles to hit a residential apartment building? Was Putin sick that day?
