It is noted that the occupiers can no longer cover their losses with production.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 10 Russian warplanes in 10 days: nine top Su-34 and Su-35 fighter-bombers, as well as the rare Beriev A-50 radar plane.

Forbes writes that this is much more combat aircraft than the Russians can afford to lose in just over a week. Squeezed by foreign sanctions, the Russian aerospace industry is struggling to produce more than a couple dozen new military aircraft a year.

In other words, the Russian Federation is losing aircraft 20 times faster than it can replace them.

How the Ukrainians manage to shoot down so many planes is unclear. The Ukrainian Air Force may have deployed some of its U.S. Patriot missile launchers into mobile air defense teams that move quickly close to the 600-mile front line of Russia’s two-year war against Ukraine, ambushing Russian aircraft with 90-mile-range PAC-2 missiles, and then moving quickly to avoid a counterattack.

But the distance at which the Ukrainians shot down the A-50 on Friday – 120 miles or so – hints that a longer-range missile system was involved. Perhaps we are talking about the rare S-200 from the Cold War, which the Ukrainian Air Force took out of storage.

It is also apparent that the Ukrainians have moved some of their two dozen NASAMS anti-aircraft missile batteries, with a 25-mile range, closer to the front lines. Eventually, the Russians discovered – and destroyed with a missile – their first NASAMS launcher in the Zaporozhye region.

The problem is that the Patriot and NASAMS batteries fire US-made missiles, and the US has not provided Ukraine with ammunition since late December. In other words, Ukraine will sooner or later run out of its best air defense missiles.

After the Russians received the ruins of Avdeevka at the cost of huge losses, the enemy began to advance in other areas. An increase in the number of sorties by Russian aviation is recorded, which poses more tasks for Ukrainian air defense, which is why more Russian aircraft are shot down.

The Ukrainian efforts are also helped by the fact that Russian pilots are increasingly becoming blind from Ukrainian missile launches. The Russian Air Force once relied on its nine or so active A-50 radar aircraft – organized into three three-plane “orbits” in the south, east and north – to provide sensor coverage throughout Ukraine.

By damaging one A-50 in a drone strike last year and shooting down two more A-50s this year, the Ukrainians have destroyed a third of that sensor coverage and created blind spots in which Russian pilots may have difficulty spotting incoming missiles.

The Ukrainian Air Force apparently intends to use its latest Patriot and NASAMS missiles to exhaust the Russian Air Force and prevent future bombing surges. The Russian Air Force, meanwhile, is seeking to bomb more Ukrainian garrisons and help Russian ground forces gain a foothold on the ground before Sukhoi squadrons run out of steam due to a lack of aircraft and experienced crews.

Destruction of Russian bombers on February 27 – top news

During the day, Ukrainian air defense shot down two Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers. The first plane was shot down on the eastern front in the morning.

Later, a new message from Air Force Commander Nikolai Oleshchuk appeared about the downing of an enemy aircraft. Another Su-34 was shot down around 2 p.m., again in eastern Ukraine.