Every Sukhoi Su-27 Fighter the Ukrainian Air Force Loses Is an Su-27 It Can't Replace
The Ukrainians might be down to a few dozen active Su-27s
A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s Mirgorod air base, in northern Ukraine 100 miles from the border with Russia, destroyed two Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-27 fighters on or before Monday.
It’s the latest in a series of Russian drone and missile strikes targeting Ukrainian warplanes parked out in the open at vulnerable bases. Since last fall, drone raids on Dolgintsevo air base, near Kryvyi Rih just 45 miles from the front line in southern Ukraine, have knocked out two Ukrainian Mikoyan MiG-29s and a Sukhoi Su-25.
For the Ukrainians, losing the two Su-27s might sting the most. Ukraine has been able to source a few replacement MiG-29s and Su-25s from its European allies, but none of these allies have any Su-27s to give away. The only way for Ukraine to replace a destroyed Su-27 is to recover an old airframe from long-term storage and rebuild it.
So it’s worth asking how many of the twin-engine, supersonic Su-27s—which fly air-defense patrols and also launch precision air-to-ground munitions—the Ukrainians have left 28 months into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine. The short answer is at most 51.
The math is straightforward. Ukraine inherited 74 then-new Su-27s when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Twenty-three years later, as few as 24 were in active service.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 motivated Kyiv to expand the Su-27 fleet. It’s possible 33 unflyable airframes were in storage. By 2016, one analyst counted 57 Ukrainian Su-27s with confirmable “bort” numbers painted on their noses.
It’s possible, with Herculean effort, Ukrainian technicians have restored every single grounded Su-27. In the meantime, the air force has lost at least 16 of the heavyweight fighters to Russian action, including the two that got plinked at Mirgorod.
At most, the current Ukrainian Su-27 fleet numbers 41. But if there are losses analysts haven’t been able to confirm, or if some of the grounded Su-27s were impossible to restore, then the fleet could be smaller. Say, two or three dozen.
In any event, every Su-27 Ukraine loses is an Su-27 it can’t replace. So every loss hurts.
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