“Ukraine is the place where these older aircraft go - much as other western and NATO military weaponry and materials - for their last stand,” Kwiatkowski remarked. “Polish and Slovakian air forces are flying and purchasing Western jets as part of NATO, no one wants 1970s fighters these days.”
“Even last year's Western reporting acknowledged the superior standoff abilities of the Russians' MiG-31BM fighter jet in taking down Ukrainian jets, and other Ukrainian airborne platforms - operating and targeting beyond the range of Ukrainian ground and air forces,” Kwiatkowski said. “As noted before, and observed throughout this conflict, the Ukrainian offensive capabilities are not and have not been operated in an effective combined arms, land-sea-air-surveillance integrated way.”
“The combination of Western sanctions driving Russia, and other countries, to develop native defense production and repair capabilities, and to develop trade connections with the rest of the world outside of the US and Europe, must be added to the actual practice gained against US and NATO surveillance, command and control, naval operations, and Western weapons systems that have surged into Ukraine in the past several years,” she explained.
“The grand US-NATO strategy in Ukraine, as the Rand study of a few years ago put forth, was to weaken Russia, as a country, as an economy, as a military, and as a global leader. If so, that strategy appears to have been wholly counterproductive,” she empahsized.