Don’t want to lose Ukraine? Empower Kyiv with airpower

Ukraine has long pleaded for more airpower as it tries to push back Russian invaders, though Washington has been hesitant to take that step. In the op-ed below, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Executive Director Douglas Birkey says new information about the state of the battlefield shows it’s past time for the Biden administration to get onboard.

According to leaked US government classified documents, with Ukrainian surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) running low, Russia could be on the verge of gaining air superiority later this spring — a key development that would boost Moscow’s invading forces as they continue to push forward in their grinding war of attrition.

This possibility aligns with  Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines March 8 congressional testimony explaining that “Putin most likely calculates that time works in his favor and that prolonging the war, including with potential pauses in the fighting, might be his best remaining pathway to eventually securing Russian strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it takes years.”

As the larger country with far more resources, Russia can win by bleeding Ukraine dry. It is time to for the US and its allies to change this calculus by empowering Ukraine with decisive combat airpower.

Supplying significant volumes of western-built combat aircraft would not only help suppress Russian airpower and bridge the SAM gap, but it would also empower Ukraine to dial up its offensive prowess and break out of a highly defensive surface-dominated struggle.

This is not revolutionary thinking — it is common sense. The conflict is currently defined by brutal WWI-like attrition-based combat. As Haines noted, this invariably favors Russia as the side with both more resources and more willingness to throw lives away. This is exactly what drove the combatants to pursue airpower and armor in WWI. They too saw that the equation had to change. The US and its allies have provided Ukraine with the armor in the form of western tanks. Now, it’s time for combat aircraft.

The good news is that this process has already begun, with Poland and Slovakia providing MiG 29s to supplement Ukrainian reserves. That’s a good start, and there is hope that these Soviet-era jets will serve to break the dam, the same way the United Kingdom’s decision to send tanks led other nations to follow. However, a broader scale and scope of planes are required to truly empower Ukraine for success.

Given the nature of the conflict, it is important to provide Ukraine with a combination of piloted fighter planes and remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). This is a complementary mix of capabilities that will allow the fighters to execute the air superiority and strike missions, and the RPAs to gather information and attack targets in well-defended regions. The fighters bring certain high-performance attributes to the equation, but it’s also important to recognize that Ukraine only has so many trained pilots. RPAs would allow them to secure certain airpower effects without putting pilots at direct risk.

Those nations who question what will happen if these forms of airpower are provided to Ukraine need to reverse the question. What happens if the support never comes or is contributed too late? The unauthorized document release shows the dire circumstances facing Ukraine. Not only does this ultimately reward Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal calculus and encourage similar aggression elsewhere along his borders, but it also sends a signal to others — potentially including China — that overt aggression can work on its neighbors.

Ironically, the same leaders who are standing in the way of providing Ukraine with meaningful airpower obliquely recognize its importance. Note Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s comments: “We do know that Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capability left. That’s why we’ve emphasized that we need to do everything that we can to get Ukraine as much air defense capability as we possibly can.” As with everything, a multi-pronged approach is always the strongest path to present a complex challenge to an adversary. Ground-based air defenses are a great capability. But they can’t be the only dimension supplied to Ukraine.

The path to providing this support is clear and readily accessible. For piloted fighter aircraft, the US and its allies are in the middle of a major recapitalization effort, with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter replacing older aircraft like the F-16. These retired aircraft could rapidly be transferred to Ukraine. In fact, Denmark already made positive comments in line with this approach.

As for RPAs, the US Air Force is proposing to retire 48 MQ-9s as part of its fiscal 2024 budget request. These aircraft are already sitting in storage containers and could be rapidly transferred. Training pipelines for both systems exist in numerous locations and Ukrainian crews could easily be inducted into that process. Logistics and maintenance support could first be handled by contractors already positioned in Europe, then transitioned to Ukrainian technicians once they are completed training. This takes time, which is why authorization should be given immediately.

Absent a major change in the situation, Russia will ultimately prevail in this conflict. The consequences of that outcome would truly be catastrophic — not just for the people of Ukraine but as a signal to other bad actors that the US and its allies ultimately, they lack the resolve to really fight, whether directly or through proxies.

It is time to empower Ukraine with modern airpower. Too much is at risk to consider any other course.

Douglas Birkey is the executive director at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.