Russian military regeneration will not dramatically alter the balance of air power. Likely priorities for Moscow will include producing enough of existing types of weaponry and aircraft to compensate for attrition, and investing in long-range bombers and stand-off missiles. However, the primary threat to NATO airpower in Europe will remain Russia’s highly effective ground-based air defence systems.
Existing capabilities and gaps
The different combat arms of the Russian Armed Forces have been affected in very different ways by the demands that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has placed on them, with the rigours of conflict highlighting strengths in some areas but also in particular exposing systemic weaknesses. For Russia’s Aerospace Forces – the VKS – the verdict is largely negative. The VKS has seen its established doctrine, tactics and equipment perform even worse, relative to pre-war expectations, than has been the case for the Russian Ground Forces.
A comparison is telling. Despite repeated strategic failures in the first year of the war and devastating losses, the Russian Ground Forces and Airborne Forces (VDV) have taken significant amounts of Ukrainian territory, inflicted serious casualties on Ukrainian forces, and successfully held the Surovikin Line against the Ukrainian summer offensive in 2023. In contrast, the VKS has failed to establish the capacity to operate fighters, ground attack aircraft or helicopters over Ukrainian-held territory.
Moreover, despite remaining on its own side of the front line since the first month or so of the full-scale invasion, the VKS has suffered significant attrition. Publicly verifiable losses at the time of writing (March 2024) included 82 fixed-wing combat aircraft and 131 helicopters; the real totals are likely to have been slightly higher, due both to losses that cannot be independently verified and to the unrecorded scrapping of aircraft damaged upon landing but considered uneconomical to repair. The majority of the fixed-wing losses incurred in the air have been of Su-34(M) Fullback strike fighters and Su-25SM/SM3 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft, with 11 Su-30SM(2) and five Su-35S multi-role fighters also lost. The remainder were Su-24 maritime strike and reconnaissance bombers, which were predominantly destroyed on the ground in Ukrainian strikes on airbases.
Helicopter losses have been most severe in the Ka-52 Alligator fleet, with 59 of its gunships destroyed, seriously damaged or captured, and in the Mi-8/17 transport helicopter fleets, where at least 21 airframes have been lost. The Mi-24/35 Hind and Mi-28 Havoc gunship fleets have also taken significant losses, despite the fact that their operational use tempo has been less intensive than that of the Ka-52s.
Perhaps even more worryingly for the VKS in future, its fast jet and attack helicopter forces have achieved at best very modest results in exchange for these significant losses. A continuing inability to plan and fly complex composite air operations (COMAOs) means that Russia is still unable to plan and coordinate the sort of mutually supporting strike packages that a US-led air campaign would rely on to conduct suppression/destruction of enemy air defences (SEAD/DEAD) and offensive counter-air operations. Instead, the VKS still operates relatively rigidly planned and tightly controlled sorties, with individual weapon release authorization required in real time from officers in ground-based or airborne command and control posts.
During the Russian offensives in 2024, Su-34, Su-30SM and Su-35 fighters and strike bombers have started to have more direct impact on the war by launching large numbers of stand-off glide-bomb attacks. The heavy 500-kg and 1,500-kg variants of the FAB series of bombs with glide-wing kits provide a relatively cheap means for the VKS to deliver concentrated explosive effect on fixed Ukrainian positions while remaining largely out of range. However, they are not able to hit mobile or dynamically located targets, so even this nominally ‘new’ capability effectively represents the use of Russia’s most modern front-line jets as blunt heavy artillery.
In comparison to the marked failure of the fast jet and helicopter fleets to achieve significant effects against Ukraine, the Tu-95, Tu-160 and Tu-22M3 bomber fleets of the Long Range Aviation (LRA) force have consistently performed well in their assigned task of strategic bombardment from stand-off ranges. From the first missile barrages against air defence targets at the outset of the invasion, through successive strike campaigns against Ukrainian defence industry, fuel, rail and power infrastructure, the LRA has maintained a significant operational tempo for two years.
Ukrainian missile defence capabilities have progressively improved, so that as the war has continued, a far higher proportion of the Kh-101 missiles fired by the Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers have been shot down before reaching their targets. However, Russian forces have demonstrated a continuing ability to adapt in response, with increasingly sophisticated coordinated waves that combine ground-launched Shahed-136/Geran-2 one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), naval Kalibir cruise missiles, Iskander-M-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, and waves of cruise missiles from the LRA to continually strain Ukrainian defences. Alongside Kh-22 and Kh-32 anti-ship missiles fired by the Tu-22M3s in indiscriminate attacks on cities, and the quasi-hypersonic Kh-47M2 ‘Kinzhal’ air-launched ballistic missile fired by the MiG-31K, the LRA has inflicted by far the most damage and had the greatest effect on the course of the conflict of any VKS area of capability.
Prospects for potential VKS re-equipment and recapitalization
The doctrinal and cultural legacy of the VKS’s roots as primarily a ground-controlled interception fighter force, reliant on pre-planned strikes from attack aircraft and helicopters tasked by ground commanders, is difficult to overcome. The relatively rigid mindset that the VKS approach to air power produces in its pilots during initial flight training and through operational service permeates to the senior ranks. This makes it difficult for Russia to fundamentally change the way it approaches air power in response to shortcomings.
Within these limitations, however, the VKS has managed a steady pace of tactical-level innovation in response to Ukrainian ground-based air defence (GBAD) and air force evolution over time. Examples include: a shift to the large-scale use of glide-bombs to provide an affordable way to strike fixed targets near the front lines from stand-off distances; slowly improving long-range air-to-air tactics; and better coordination of electronic warfare (EW) effects with both fixed-wing and rotary sorties.
In the coming years, there is little chance that the VKS will be able to overcome its core doctrinal and cultural limitations, since the rigid and piecemeal approach to air power employment is deeply ingrained in both the VKS itself and the wider military leadership – dominated by the Russian Ground Forces – within which the VKS operates. However, tactical adaptation will undoubtedly continue, and the VKS will attempt to develop weapons, EW techniques and possibly new platforms to compensate for its shortcomings in Ukraine.
The relatively rigid mindset that the VKS approach to air power produces in its pilots during initial flight training and through operational service permeates to the senior ranks. This makes it difficult for Russia to fundamentally change the way it approaches air power in response to shortcomings.
It remains to be seen whether such investment in the development of new weapons and aircraft to fill known gaps will receive significant funding, however, or whether the VKS will instead invest further in increasing the size of force elements that have already proven relatively effective.
One route that the VKS leadership may decide to take is to push a greater share of overall sustainment, ammunition procurement and recapitalization funding into the LRA, which offers a well-understood return on that investment in terms of combat power. Work is already under way to modify Tu-22M3s to carry and launch the Kh-47M2, alongside the MiG-31K and Su-34, suggesting that Russia wishes to expand its salvo launch capacity for the weapon despite disappointing performance against the Patriot PAC-3 missile defence system.
Tu-160 modernization efforts continue. Existing airframes are being reconditioned to Tu-160M standard, and a contract is also in place for 10 new-build Tu-160M2 aircraft that will significantly increase the capacity of the Blackjack fleet by the end of the decade. Russian production of long-range missiles has also increased significantly since the start of the invasion, with well over 100 missiles per month now being manufactured across the various cruise and ballistic types.
Equally, the VKS might try to increase the development priority allocated to the Su-57 Felon programme and other relatively novel weapons systems in order to try to close the obvious capability gaps revealed in its fast jet fleets, especially when facing hostile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. Here, Russian production and development capacity is likely to be limited by constraints on access to Western micro-electronic components and avionics.
In addition, the Su-57 Felon’s stealth properties have been hampered by persistent manufacturing quality challenges and an airframe shape that prioritized manoeuvrability and lower development costs over minimizing radar cross section. Consequently, although Su-57s have flown regularly and have even reportedly used weapons against Ukrainian targets, the VKS has not been willing to risk its small existing fleet of Su-57s inside Ukrainian-controlled airspace.
Policy implications for the US and NATO, and for future wars
Given that the VKS leadership appears to lack faith in the Su-57’s survivability against Ukrainian air defence systems, it seems unlikely in the foreseeable future that the aircraft could dramatically improve the VKS’s ability to operate in contested airspace against NATO forces that operate far more capable sensors than Ukraine.
Russia’s long-range precision-strike arsenal has long been one of the more concerning aspects for Western military planners.
Therefore, even if the VKS chooses to prioritize the more rapid development and production of the supposedly improved Su-57M version from 2027 onwards, such a move would probably have limited implications for the air-to-air overmatch that the US and NATO have long enjoyed relative to Russia.
On the other hand, Russia’s long-range precision-strike arsenal has long been one of the more concerning aspects for Western military planners. During the post-Cold War era, most European air forces have closed many of their airbases and have concentrated their aircraft and maintenance organizations on a relatively small number of ‘superbases’. These superbases are more cost-efficient, but are also much easier targets.
Therefore, a Russian decision to prioritize LRA development and missile production would make current NATO efforts to reinforce NATO deterrence capacity in Europe more challenging from a dispersal and missile defence requirements perspective.
In any case, Russia’s available resources for recapitalization and regeneration of VKS aircraft and weapons will be constrained by the urgent demands for large-scale production of key capabilities in other domains to support the ongoing war against Ukraine. Russia has poured resources into increasing production and reconditioning of artillery shells, howitzers, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and armoured personnel carriers (APCs) since October 2022. It is also investing heavily in the production of UAVs such as the Orlan-10, loitering munitions such as the Lancet-3, and first-person-view one-way attack drones.
Therefore, whatever the VKS prioritizes in the medium term to try to enhance its capabilities, it may find that it struggles to compete with the ground forces for the necessary resources. It may also find that it is further constrained in its more ambitious technical projects by sanctions enforcement against potential suppliers of key components.
Consequently, for the foreseeable future the biggest threats to NATO from Russia in the air domain are likely to remain – as now – its numerous, lethal and layered SAM systems and a growing long-range strike arsenal.
