Why Russia is INCAPABLE of Air Superiority in Ukraine 

I worked with a former Wild Weasel pilot who flew in Iraq and Afghanistan. He told me that there was a message they'd broadcast to tell each other that they'd fired the missile. Eventually they realised they could broadcast this message on open frequencies, and the enemy SAMs would turn off their radars to hide. So they would fly around broadcasting the message without actually firing the missile, and the enemy would keep turning off their radars, suppressing themselves!

Thank you for pointing out why NATO won't set up no fly zone for Ukraine.

I used to work with an AE-6 EWO and he would talk about his SEAD missions over North Vietnam. One such was seeing a SAM-2 launch and turn toward them, guiding. After a bit watching it apparently not move - meaning you were looking right at it and it was heading directly for you - he nudged his pilot who snapped back irritably, "I see it! I see it!"

The ending cracked me up hahaha “Everything is going to plan” 🤣

One thing to note: I have seen a lot of people in the media using the term air superiority for situations that would better fit the definition of air supremacy. Air Supremacy would be what the coalition air forces had during the ground phase of the First Gulf War. Air Superiority is when air space is dominated by one force, but the opposing force still has the capability to contest local air spaces for a limited time, otherwise put, the ability to achieve temporary local air parity.

6:06 A Wild Weasel pilot once described his job as, "Hunting Elephant Guns with Elephants."

I personally attended the Dubai Airshow in the late 90's. During the 5 days of display flying the F-16, flown by a General Dynamics test pilot, amazed crowds. The plane seemed to defy gravity and actually pulled up into a near hover and accelerated vertically. The soviets brought a MiG 29 to the show and over the course of 5 days the flight crew was only able to manage one of the demonstration flights, and that was on the very last day. The plane was amazing and the pilot skills were world class [Even got to see the Cobra maneuver first hand] but the fact that the aircraft was only able to make 20% of its demonstration flight schedule spoke volumes. Of course there was one other thing that was super odd to me. As an aircraft mechanic I had to marvel at the fact that the majority of the close out panels on the tail were fastened with straight slot screws. Seemed odd.

The amount of money these companies are making from this war is staggering. Alot are even "no bid contracts" which should be illegal. Opens up way too much temptation for corruption , but that is the way of this world unfortunately.

I wonder how many FUNCTIONAL planes they actually have. With the rampant evidence of neglect and disrepair on ground vehicles it would not surprise me if the majority of the aircraft were out of service. With the decades of corruption and neglect I would not surprise me if they they only kept enough functioning to maintain appearances while pocketing much of the air forces budget.

Russia considers their troops to be more expendable than it’s jets/pilots

Unlike the US, Russia doesn't have an airpower-centric philosophy of warfare. Their air force serves mainly defensive purposes, i.e. denying the enemy use of the airspace overhead their army. Even then, they're acutely aware of their technological inferiority, so they've built sophisticated air defence systems like the S-300 and S-400 to defend against superior Nato air forces.

2:00 never get old

Thank you for bringing Wild Weasel aircraft to my attention. The fact that this idea is so suicidal that the pilot who was told he'd be the weasel for the first ever WW op said "you've gotta be shitting me" in response to it and it became the motto of Wild Weasel pilots from then on is hilarious

Fact is, despite having way more aircraft, the quality of both sides makes only air parity possible. That coupled with enough manpads to make Kyiv look like Sam City means they won't achieve it.

Great info about the unfortunate and horrible situation in Ukraine . Keep up the good work and may the force be with the courageous Ukrainian forces!

Six months later and Russia still does not have Air Superiority over Ukraine.

One other factor is that most SEAD missions undertaken by Air Force Units over Iraq were actually DEAD missions. Once the weasels had disabled the radars additional planes were sent in to bomb the launchers and other vehicles. This eats up a LOT of sorties (this is where that 30% number comes from). But it means that launcher unit is GONE. Knocking out a radar may help today, but that can be fixed. The Russian sortie count has been too low to really remove much in the way of defenses.

Finally someone explained this no-fly zone practically and in very simple terms. Thank you.

Wonderful video and explanation. The Wild Weasels part was great to know about, and the no-fly explanation at 12:10 profound.

Finally some answers, that make sense. Thanks

I doubt they “overestimated” their power so that’s the reason they didn’t use many air attacks. America used air power in the Middle East even though they obviously had a superior ground force. It’s just common sense and prudent to use your Air Force alongside your ground force.

When building your army's ability to deter with lies, you must not make the mistake of believing your own lies.

13:30 Yes! PLEASE keep telling him that!

Thank you

Ukrainian here. My dad is an ex-officer, my mom worked 10 years at a military air base. What I will tell you about Ukrainian Air Force (from late 90s, early 2000s) probably applies x10 times to Russian Air Force: 1. Lack Training (as you mentioned). This stems from lack of funding (direct), corruption, general disorganization in the military force. 2. Bad Equipment. People are often tasked with fixing their own equipment; buying their own equipment; using partially broken systems. 3. Legacy Methods. I saw people reading manuals that were 20-30 years old. Sometimes more. I mean, we can all appreciate some von clausewitz from time to time but not when we're talking about aviation. 4. Drinking issues. 5. Exhaustion. Either from unrealistic expectations or because pilots would work a second job to make their ends meet. 6. Inexperienced high command. People like generals would have only bureaucratic experience, no war experience in managing real operations. This is only a portion of stuff. You can add general technical backwardness to this too. Now Ukraine had a big wake up call in 2014 so we started changing a lot of things. We didn't have enough budget & you cannot modify the whole military/country structure in 8 years but the progress is obvious. Nice work on the vid.

They do have air superiority, but not air supremacy.

Excellent analysis and discussions. Educational and helpful. Thanks.

Good info Keep it up

It seems likely that they are very worried about a nato response and are afraid to deplete strategic material. It becomes the example of how expensive it can be to only partially commit.

This makes me appreciate how disciplined and trained the U.S. military and other NATO Allies are. I’m almost all areas like air, land, and sea operations.

Top thank you for giving out (suggestions) important/interesting info to the enemy?

Glad to see this videos back Up

Conclusion: Russia just gave some military stuff to ukrainian farmers as a gift

I really wish I weren't living through a major historical event RIGHT NOW

Thank you! Greetings from Kyiv!!

Great video!!!

Airforce: 200 flight hours per year Navy: you gotta bump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers right there

Meanwhile ukrainian AA vehicles are increasing thanks to russian donations

Very convining analysis

The fact a giant convoy was allowed to be that congested and relatively uncontested to the point a supply depot has been setup due west of Kiev...should be the only deciding factor in judging whether or not Russia has dominated the skies.

Its important to note that the US has such a massive military budget in can subsidize all its major allies and that the only real bottleneck when it comes to training and equipment is man power, Russia has an infinitesimal budget in comparison and so the effects of mismanagement or high cost training hits a lot harder.

Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Heroes!

I am falling in love with your channel....I subed and give thumbs up!!!

Russia's still fighting with 1940s tactics. The kind of tactics that let them beat the Nazis while sustaining 5 times as many casualties as the Germans did.

Don’t forget that the Serbians managed to keep some of their SAMs operational against NATO for the whole conflict by using clever tactics.

Literally LOL'ed with the Wild Weasels' slogan.

To those than know- does SEAD still work against more modern air defense systems with multiple radars stationed miles apart from both each other and the actual missile launchers? Not to mention how do they defend against multiple missiles, when shaking off one already takes a few years of you?

USAF has stopped using the Wild Weasel tactics and specific platforms to execute SEAD and DEAD missions. USAF's modern tactical aircraft are almost entirely composed out of multi role platforms which are capable of executing SEAD, anti air and air interdiction missions simultaneously. The only difference is that during the first days of war you would see F-15/16/18/35s loaded with more MALDs and AARMS.

Circa 1945: Nuclear weapons invented to end/deter conventional warfare. 2022: Fear of Nuclear War allows conventional warfare to Rage On without international opposition.

great explanation!

4:35 DAMN!! that's badass

So much appreciation for an actual critical analysis of the conflict. Thank you, keep it up!

You make some very good points, all valid. But you miss on very basic point for which the evidence is right there. That is the condition of the equipment. There is no doubt that the ground equipment that the Russians are using is suffering from long term lack of maintains obvious in leaking oil seals destroyed tires and completely abandoned vehicles. Aircraft need 4 or 5 times the maintains of ground equipment and why should they be any different to their army in that respect You quote the Russians as having 923 multi roll and 467 attack aircraft and I have no doubt of your numbers but even in a well maintained airforce there will be around 20% of the aircraft grounded at any given time and given what we now know about the level of maintains that number is very likely to be much higher and could well be as high as 50%. Put on top of that the fact that Russian pilots get less than half of the training that their equivalent US or NATO pilots would there will be a tendency to give their aircraft a much harder time and that their ground crew will correspondingly less experienced meaning that their combat capable level could easily be as low as 25%. All of a sudden you are talking about 230 Multi roll and 116 attack aircraft capable of actual combat and now you have a completely different picture, one that fits what we are seeing. The fact is that what we thought as one of the strongest militaries in the world is proving to be a house of cards.

GO BIG BLUE! 🇺🇦🇺🇸

Excellent review, and good news for the free world!

Ending the analysis with a Russian minister assuring an irritated Putin is just comedy gold. The whole world is watching what an abysmal failure their "special military operation" has been, I just wish more Russian people had the knowledge of what is going on.

Bro, I'm amazed about how well explained you made this video, I didn't expect it. Here on RU-vid it's difficult to find complex analysis about this crisis, most of the content I found were not technically explained.

Please keep this vid up so we can see how it ages.

Love the final 3 seconds, showing the nature of a corrupt regime.

Well, Russia has partially taken air superioty. This was evident after the 17 kilometer long convoy heading to Kyiv had received little to no air bombardment, and most of the air attacks are from remote controlled drones and small ground missiles

Notice the red Soviet Union flag, not the Russian flag 🇷🇺 on the tank. That says a lot about former Soviet KGB officer now Russian President Vladimir Putin's goals in invading Ukraine.

the building at 0:12 is actually destroyed by a ukrainian AA missile...I believe

Nice analysis

It’s not the size of the sword but the skill of the swordsman

I hesitantly clicked on this video and was pleasantly surprised with its quality! Found it very informative and enjoyable to watch... Thank you!

the most correct statement in video was “not a good idea”.

The right to keep and bare A.R.M.s shall not be infringed.

775 missiles and estimating that each can cost 2 million dollars or more so I think from the cost perspective it explains why they are not firing much more of them Limited sorties of the RU airforce could be because: Lack of pilots (or willing pilots), lack of maintenance which generates lack of readiness, fear of losing pilots, fear of fuel shortage, lack of spare parts, etc... There are reports from the Ukrainian goverment of Russian pilots ejecting and their parachutes not working: Could be deliberate sabotage by RU so pilots aren't captured (which I think is unlikely as there are pilots which the chute worked) or lack of maintenance.. There are reports of widepread corruption in RU goverment which diversed funds that were supposed to modernize the military forces

I love this channel. Great info. I'm appreciative of any insight into this conflict.

Corruption always leads to incompetence.

Nice presentation

We thought Russia was a superpower but that isn’t true anymore, they are more about numbers then combat effectiveness and survivability rates

I was also amazed by the fact that even after this much time they still didnt have air superiority over a much much weaker airforce and AirDef/SAM system Maybe we all over estimated the Russian Military This puts into question what equipment they are selling in exports

Your voice is interesting enough to stay awake when I want, but monotone enough for me to fall asleep listening to it

The Wild Weasel Patch - YGBSM 😄😄 I'm confident that would've been pretty close to my response too!!

A year ago, the Russian military was so damn feared and respected. It obviously inherited that reputation from the USSR, but it's been so long since they fought anything tougher than third-world rebels, it hasn't been so obvious that their military is just as rotten as their government. It's now crystal clear that the only scary thing about Russia is their nukes. Given their commitment to maintenance and procedure, I seriously doubt all or even most of them are functional. But only a dozen or so need to function to ruin the world.

The footage of tractors dragging away missile systems and tanks makes me laugh so hard. The Ukrainian people are goddamn hero’s.

All i was thinking when you gave the numbrrs of aircraft, was: "well not anymore"

Very interesting

" 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia-double the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II."

Can you do a video on different types of doctrines

The Wild Weasels. Balls of steel 😀😀

The heavy use of MANPADS makes things kinda tough. It’s not a large group of vehicles, or even a single vehicle. It’s a dude with a missile. And there’s lots of em.

Anyway thanks a lot for the hard working on these amazing videos 👍

Veteran of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom here! We also dropped countless bombs protecting that friggin oil pipeline. Still have all the red arming lanyards that arm a bomb as soon as its dropped. Has a little magnetic doodad on the tip. I was a plane captain for my first cruise. For those that don’t know what that is, its the enlisted squadron sailor who is solely responsible for a jet while it is on the ground. Its why I got my name put on the jet right next to the pilots. Because we are the first line of defense at identifying problems during Turn Around and final ground inspections once the jet comes back from flight. We are the ones who fuel them, give them oil, clean them inside and out, polishing the canopy and much more. I was so good I became head plane captain of 70 PCs, got my name on my squadrons show jet and even got to show it to the Prince of the Netherlands one time. Which got me a free from duty chit and a first off the ship chit when we pulled into Lisbon Portugal on our way to dry dock after our 2005 world cruise simply because i got my jet to look like it literally came off the showroom floor. Which if you know how dirty a jet gets on a ship from the launch grease splattering everywhere, and i mean EVERYWHERE, you would know how difficult it is to get a jet to look brand new. Took me almost 12 hours with 8 unqualified plane captains working under me to get it like that. The jets get so friggin dirty and greasy that squadrons with older jets didn’t even bother to clean them anymore. We started from San Diego, went to our patrol in the north Arabian gulf and then went through the Suez Canal 7 months later on our way home to Norfolk VA dry docks. Now I can say i have literally circumnavigated the globe.

THEY HAVE NO MONEY !!

"Everything is going to plan" at the end made me laugh how politics work.

Judging from captured soldiers and those stranded due to lack of fuel, they expected a lot less resistance, to be hailed as liberators and Kyiv to fall in under 48 hours, 72 max. Things did not go that way.

There is a youtube channel called "The Operations Room" and they do videos on how modern battles went down, and their series on Desert Storm shows just how beautifully the US led coalition took air superiority in the first few days of combat. True air power is insane and Russia does not have that.

You never know what's happening behind closed doors.

Like a lot of bullies when it comes to it they are found wanting.

This is a really excellent video with great analysis!

Good video. I don't think most people realize that a no fly zone would require attacks on Russian or Belarusian soil. I know I hadn't thought of that, and I consider myself very well informed.

Oh man, I'm definitely not a "beauty of our weapons" guy, but that just looks gorgeous 11:43

If Russia cant beat Ukraine, How in the hell would they ever stand up against the finest Military in the world? The U.S. Military would take it to them Brooklyn style.

No other videos I have watched about enforcing a no fly zone have mentioned that NATO would need to attack Russian air defence systems inside Russia! It is a very good point and is another reason it makes it completely unworkable.

The excerpt at the end is perfect.... "Everything is going to plan."

Thanks to all the friends of my Ukraine for their help

If you aren't trained on SEAD MISSIONS YOU CAN NOT FLY THEM.😂😂😂😂

Another Note: Western intelligence allowed Ukraine to hide and protect a lot of military equipment including things such as SAMs.