Ukraine’s Pilots Are Exhausted. But Its Drones Are Still Going Strong

Russia has had nearly a month to gain control of the air over Ukraine. It has failed.

With the wider war in Ukraine about to enter its second month, Ukrainian fighter jets and drones are still flying, still fighting and still notching victories over a much larger and more technologically sophisticated Russian force.

“The Ukrainian air force and air-defense forces are continuing to effectively defend Ukrainian air space,” the British defense ministry stated Saturday.

How much longer the Ukrainian air force’s fighter pilots can keep fighting is an open question. Kyiv so far has failed to acquire additional jets to bolster its dwindling fleet. Perhaps more importantly, the air force is struggling to husband its fuel stores.

However, the Ukrainians reportedly have topped off their holdings of Turkish-made TB-2 armed drones. The attrition of Kyiv’s manned fighter fleet and simultaneous expansion of its drone fleet is hastening an evolution that was all but inevitable even before Russia escalated its war on Ukraine starting on the night of Feb. 23.

The Ukrainian air force is becoming a drone air force. And arguably a better one for that. Kyiv’s propeller-driven TB-2s, loitering over Ukraine’s highways, have proved devastatingly effective against Russian air-defense vehicles, tanks and trucks. More effective by far than MiGs and Sukhois.

Ukraine began the war with around 125 active manned warplanes, including 30 or 40 Su-27 fighters and 50 or more MiG-29s plus a few dozen Su-24 and Su-25 attack planes. Additional airframes were in storage. The TB-2s numbered around 20 until Turkey reportedly shipped in more airframes.

In the hours before the initial Russian bombardment, Ukrainian squadrons scattered, away from their big bases. Some of the bigger aircraft such as airlifters, whose transponders were active, were visible on flight-tracking websites as they dispersed.

Setting up at small airfields or even roadways—mostly if not entirely west of the Dnieper River—the squadrons survived the rocket barrages.

Ukraine’s manned planes quickly flew into action, tangling with Russian jets and bombing Russian formations on the ground. The TB-2 operators, meanwhile, took a few days to set up their control stations, radios and—apparently—links to Turksat satellites that help the drones fly farther from their austere bases.

Kyiv’s aerial losses were acute in those first few days. Russian air-defenses shot down a pair of Ukrainian Su-25s in the span of a minute near Kherson in southern Ukraine, killing both pilots. A Russian long-range missile battery swatted a Ukrainian Su-27 patrolling over Kyiv, killing the pilot.

The Kremlin claims it has shot down scores of Ukrainian aircraft. Foreign analysts have confirmed just 13 losses—three Su-27s, three MiG-29s, five Su-25s, an Antonov transport and one TB-2.

The defense ministry in Kyiv has made its own bold claim—this its pilots and air-defense crews have downed at least 99 Russian aircraft. Observers however have confirmed 14 shoot-downs—six Su-25s, four Su-34s, three Su-30s and an Antonov.

Even counting only the verified losses, it’s clear Russia is losing a lot of planes to a numerically and technologically inferior foe. “I would say that Ukrainians have been extraordinarily effective at preventing the Russians from achieving air superiority by the agility and the nimble way in which they are marshaling their own air-defense resources,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday.

But the Ukrainian air force gets weaker every day the war grinds on. On March 11, a senior U.S. defense official said Kyiv was down to 56 active fighters—roughly half its pre-war total. An effort to source used MiG-29s from Poland ended in diplomatic disarray.

The air force could run out of aviation fuel before it runs out of MiGs. “The Russians are continuously targeting fuel depots of major Ukrainian air bases with their ballistic missiles,” wrote Tom Cooper, an author and expert on the Russian military.

By week four, the Ukrainian air arm was flying just five to 10 sorties a day, versus the 200 or more sorties the Russian air force was launching in or around Ukraine. “Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight,” Andriy, a Ukrainian Su-27 pilot, told The New York Times. “In every fight with Russian jets, there is no equality. They always have five times more” fighters in the air.

The Ukrainian fighter force might not remain relevant much longer. But that doesn’t mean Kyiv’s troops can’t contest the air. The Ukrainians are getting shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles from half-a-dozen countries, and putting them to good use against low-flying Russian jets.

And Ukraine’s drone fleet still is going strong. Once their operators had reestablished operations at their dispersed bases, the TB-2s systematically began dismantling Russia’s front-line air-defenses on the highways around Kyiv in the north and Mykolaiv in the south.

After plinking a dozen or more air-defense systems, the drones began targeting tanks, trucks and supply trains. “TB-2s are also wrecking the Russians’ nerves,” Cooper wrote. “We’ve seen several videos shown entire Russian [battalions] turning around and fleeing after losing only a few vehicles to TB-2s.”

A year ago, Cooper proposed that the Ukrainian air force give up on far-fetched plans to acquire new manned fighters and instead evolve into an all-drone force strongly supported by ground-based air-defenses.

The TB-2s’ recent successes over the war zone only underscore that argument. For Ukraine, manned jets are “neither economic, nor makes sense,” Cooper said. Drones are the Ukrainian air force’s present—and its future.