Why Russia failed to dominate the skies over Ukraine

In the run up to the Russian invasion in February airpower analysts, including this author, were gloomy about Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace.

Even the more optimistic assessments assumed that Russia would mount a significant air campaign to destroy the Ukrainian Air Force on its airbases, coupled with large-scale strikes with stand-off cruise and ballistic missiles to blind Ukrainian long range early warning and surface-to-air missile (SAM) system radars. This would have forced Ukraine to move its mobile surface to air missiles away from the frontlines and to try and inflict a steady drumbeat of losses on Russian aircraft penetrating too far. Meanwhile, the defence of Ukrainian frontline units would be mostly left to man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) to at least make Russian low-level attack runs a dangerous prospect.

When the invasion was launched on 24 February, a barrage of cruise and ballistic missiles struck Ukrainian airbases, munitions dumps, long range SAM positions and radar stations.