Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 fighterMOSCOW, 8 Feb. The Ukrainian Air Force is hopelessly inferior to the Russian Aerospace Forces, writes the American Forbes magazine. Official Kiev, the author of the material believes, can at best assemble 125 front-line combat aircraft. Of these, 71 are fighters. Of all the fighters, 34 are combat-ready twin-engine Su-27 Flanker. Against seven dozen active Ukrainian fighters, the Russian Aerospace Forces can deploy hundreds of new and much more combat-ready aircraft, the article states. In any case, the author of the article notes, the hypothetical «battle» will most likely be short. And it will end not in favor of Ukraine. Earlier, security expert Mark Episkopos, in an article for the National Interest, recalled that the Ukrainian Air Force consists of an outdated fleet of Soviet aircraft from the 1960s-1970s. The dominance of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the air will be provided by the latest fighters and improved bombers, as well as an extensive and layered air defense network. The military budgets of both countries are also strikingly different. Kiev spends about 5.2 billion dollars on the army, and Moscow — 65 billion months of publications that Russia is allegedly preparing an invasion of Ukraine appear in the Western media constantly. Washington and Brussels accuse Moscow of aggression and, against this background, are strengthening their presence in Eastern Europe. Russia rejects all claims and reminds that Kiev does not comply with the Minsk agreements: the Ukrainian authorities have concentrated half of the army’s personnel near the line of contact and are firing at militias from prohibited weapons. The Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry have repeatedly noted that the goal of the «aggression» stories is to build up a foreign group near the Russian borders. They also explained that the main reason for the escalation is the actions of the US and NATO, which are pumping weapons to Ukraine, thereby pushing it towards military adventures.
