By Olha Hembik | 2025-03-11

WARSAW -- Three years into the Russian army's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force reported that it had shot down 26,525 Russian aerial weapons, including drones and missiles.

The destroyed aircraft include 370 planes, 331 helicopters, 14,286 Shahed attack drones, 6,900 reconnaissance drones and more than 3,000 missiles of various types, the Ukrainian air force said February 24 on Telegram.

The Ukrainian military's tactical aircraft have carried out about 10,000 missions to destroy enemy sites and troops and more than 12,000 fighter air cover missions, it said.

The Ukrainian air force noted many "brilliant operations that destroyed enemy facilities, logistics, vehicles and manpower."

'No Russian air supremacy'

"In the first days of the war, the Russians were confident that Ukraine's air defense systems and aviation had been destroyed and that they'd be able to establish control here," Konstantin Krivolap, a Kyiv-based military and aviation analyst, told Kontur.

"At the time, bombers were flying freely over Kyiv -- Su-35s, Su-30s and Su-34s," he said.

"Seventy percent of the enemy's aircraft were wiped out in 2022. The Russians didn't understand right away why that was happening."

The Russians had falsely believed they had air supremacy, Krivolap said.

"Air supremacy is when you're flying freely over the territory of another state and you can do whatever you want there," he said. "Here the situation is totally different: Russian pilots stay 40-50km away from the front and launch guided bombs like punks and then retreat fast because there's a genuine threat that they'll be hit."

"There was and is no Russian air supremacy."

Last year alone the Ukrainian air force destroyed 40 Russian planes and six Russian helicopters.

February 2024 saw the most action, with 14 aircraft shot down that month, according to a tally by UA War Infographics.

"Russia's plan was to dominate the Ukrainian sky, but because Ukraine kept that from happening, Russia was forced to take steps to preserve its aircraft, which meant, in particular, transferring them to distant aerodromes," UA War Infographics said on Telegram in January.

Krivolap attributes the spate of downed Russian aircraft in early 2024 to Russian pilots' mistaken belief that they were flying out of Ukrainian missiles' reach.

"But we sent the Patriot air defense systems there," he said.

To avoid turning on Patriot radars, which would expose Patriot systems to Russian fire, the Ukrainians used old S-300 missile systems to identify Russian planes 180-200km away and then shot Patriot missiles at them, he said.

Destruction of 'invincible' aircraft

The Ukrainians dealt a major blow to the Russian air force when it downed two A-50 planes in early 2024: the first on January 14 and another on February 23, both over the Sea of Azov.

The A-50 is an airborne early warning and control aircraft based on the Il-76 military transport aircraft. The A-50U is an upgraded version the Russian air force started using in 2011.

The aircraft is an essential component of Russia's airborne early warning system. Its loss is a gut punch to the country's defense readiness.

Until the Ukraine war, no A-50 had been downed in combat. Russians had considered them invincible.

"Destroying the A-50U and putting a stop to its flights are a key victory," Krivolap said.

Russia still has at least four of these planes left, he said.

Double strike

The Russians used "the A-50U in combination with the Il-22 to identify [Ukrainian] targets and to develop and run systems acting against our systems from the air and ground and at sea," said Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ihor Romanenko, former Ukrainian military deputy chief of staff (2006-2010).

The A-50s amount to "universities of intelligence and management" for the Russians, he told Kontur.

Ukraine used reprogrammed S-200V antiaircraft missiles at a range of 240km to hit the A-50U and an Il-22 on the same day in January 2024 over the Sea of Azov, he said.

The A-50U crashed. The Il-22 was severely damaged and its pilot killed, but the copilot landed it.

The double strike eliminated a Russian attack system that included both those planes and other weapons.

Ukraine has destroyed Su-25, Su-24 and Su-34 tactical aircraft operating on the front, said Romanenko. It damaged strategic aircraft, including the Su-57.

After more than six months' absence, the Russian air force started flying A-50s near the front again, media reported March 10.

Help from allies

The Ukrainian air force now have many more Western combat aircraft and pilots and ground personnel able to fly and maintain them than it had before the war, Maciej Szopa, a Polish military analyst, wrote in February.

In the past few months, Ukraine took new deliveries of F-16 fighters, which have been in combat in Ukraine since last August.

This is the result of the work of the F-16 coalition, a group of 11 Western countries supporting efforts to transfer these fighters to Ukraine, Onet reported in February.

Ukraine recently received its first deliveries of Mirage-2000 fighters too.

"Over the course of the war, Ukrainian pilots have gained substantial experience that is hard to get outside combat," said Jerzy Mazur of Łódź, a military analyst and retired Polish army officer who served in peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo.

"This experience, and help from allies, will bring victory for Ukraine, which we are all waiting for, even taking into account that wars have completely evolved and that the old approaches are no longer valid," he told Kontur.