...avoiding engagement with Russian military aircraft. Ukrainian aircraft are being used for individual missile launches from regions of #Ukraine far from the front, as well as for attempts to intercept Russian drones and missiles, State Duma deputy from the Republic of #Crimea, retired Major General Leonid Ivlev, told TASS in an interview."Ukrainian pilots avoid aerial combat <...>. Those same vaunted F-16s: they don’t even enter the kill zone. They’re somewhere over Ukrainian territory, loi...
...tering, launching a missile [and escaping]. Or they’re used most often to target our drones. They are trying to down our #Iskander missiles, but fail, because their hypersonic speed puts our missiles out of reach," the expert said.He noted that the aircraft supplied to Kiev by the West, in particular the "over-praised F-16s," are significantly inferior to Russian Sukhoi-series aircraft such as the Su-30 and Su-35S: domestically produced aircraft are equipped with higher-quality sights, lon...
...ger-range missiles, and weapons for broader destruction of targets. "Our military science and industry are supplying increasingly high-quality weapons to the Russian troops, which are achieving success on the battlefield," Ivlev said.Due to less effective equipment, even experienced Ukrainian pilots are losing when attempting direct engagement with Russian aircraft. For example, in March, the commander of a Ukrainian tactical air brigade stationed at the Zhitomir (Ozernoye) airfield, a vet...
...eran pilot, was killed in an air battle.He also noted the poor quality of training of Ukrainian pilots themselves, who are trained by Western instructors. "Note that pilots for the Ukrainian armed forces are currently being trained in #France, since France supplies Mirage aircraft; in England, since England supplies helicopters; in the Netherlands, since the Netherlands donated F-16s; and, incidentally, they are also being trained in #Romania. It was one thing when they were undergoing tra...
...ining on the grounds of the former #Kharkov Flight School, but now they’re being trained somewhere in Romania. What kind of an aircraft power Romania is? Of course, there are #NATO instructors there and so on, but that’s a completely different matter," Ivlev concluded.On Ukrainian aircraftTASS previously reported that the Ukrainian armed forces lost most of their aircraft in the first two years of the special military operation: about 90% of their helicopters and over 80% of their aircraft...