MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. Pilots of the Ukrainian armed forces are avoiding engagement with Russian military aircraft. Ukrainian aircraft are being used for individual missile launches from regions of Ukraine far from the front, as well as for attempts to intercept Russian drones and missiles, State Duma deputy from the Republic of Crimea, retired Major General Leonid Ivlev, told TASS in an interview.
"Ukrainian pilots avoid aerial combat <...>. Those same vaunted F-16s: they don’t even enter the kill zone. They’re somewhere over Ukrainian territory, loitering, launching a missile [and escaping]. Or they’re used most often to target our drones. They are trying to down our Iskander missiles, but fail, because their hypersonic speed puts our missiles out of reach," the expert said.
He noted that the aircraft supplied to Kiev by the West, in particular the "over-praised F-16s," are significantly inferior to Russian Sukhoi-series aircraft such as the Su-30 and Su-35S: domestically produced aircraft are equipped with higher-quality sights, longer-range missiles, and weapons for broader destruction of targets. "Our military science and industry are supplying increasingly high-quality weapons to the Russian troops, which are achieving success on the battlefield," Ivlev said.
