- Russia's air force has struggled to exploit air superiority over Ukraine since the start of the war.
- It has especially not been very useful in supporting its ground forces, the think tank RUSI found.
Russian pilots have struggled to support their troops on the ground because of poor training and outdated equipment, according to a report published by the top British think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
The report, published this week, outlines the strengths and weaknesses of Russia's air force in Ukraine based on a series of interviews with intelligence services, military experts, and Ukrainian air force commanders.
It found that one of Russia's biggest failures in Ukraine since it first invaded in February last year is that its pilots have been unable to "provide dynamic close air support to Russian units on the battlefield."
Supporting ground troops requires Russian pilots to fly at a very low altitude, which very few have been trained to do, the report found.
"Very few Russian fixed-wing pilots had significant training or currency for very low-altitude close air support in contested airspace, since this never formed part of their core training tasks before the invasion," it said.
On top of this, some Russian aircrafts have "known deficiencies" with several sensors and weapons that disallow them from being able to effectively hit their targets, RUSI said. This includes Russian targeting systems and precision-guided munitions.
"Russia has not invested heavily in the sort of sensors, weapons, and pilot training that Western air forces have taken for granted after decades of counter-insurgency campaigns where airpower provided the majority of deployed joint force firepower," the report added.
The Russian air force has lacked success since the start of its invasion mostly due to the resilience of Ukraine's ground-to-air defense systems.
Ukraine has largely defended its skies with its own systems until October 2022 but is now mainly relying on Western-supplied weapons, including US Stinger missiles, the report said.
Despite this, Russia still has lots of aircraft left, which could put additional stress on Ukraine's air defenses, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin warned earlier this year.
"We do know that Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capability left," Austin said. "We need to do everything that we can to get Ukraine as much air defense capability as we possibly can."