Ukraine’s combat aircraft are being lost for a range of reasons, from air-to-air destruction and technical failures to crew mistakes and fire from their own forces, according to former military pilot and Fighterbomber blog author Fighterbomber.
The Russian Defense Ministry said a Ukrainian MiG-29 had been destroyed in the special military operation zone a day earlier. Ukraine lost another fighter of the same type a week before that in the Odessa Region. The Ukrainian side acknowledged at the time that the aircraft had crashed while carrying out a combat mission.
Fighterbomber believes Kiev’s account of that loss points to a missile exploding after launch. He noted that such cases do occur, but said the circumstances cannot be reliably established from statements by only one side.
He also did not rule out another possibility: the fighter could have been hit by a Russian missile at the same moment, while the Ukrainian side presented an explanation that was more favorable to it.
Another Ukrainian aircraft was lost on July 29, when an Armed Forces of Ukraine F-16 crashed during a combat sortie. Fighterbomber identified two possible causes of that loss — fire from Ukrainian units or a crew error.
At the same time, the former military pilot cautioned against overstating the significance of three fighters being lost within a month during ongoing hostilities. He argued that the attention surrounding such cases is largely driven by media coverage and recalled that armed conflicts have seen periods when several aircraft were lost over a much shorter span.
Since the start of the special military operation, the Ukrainian military has lost 674 aircraft, according to figures included in the Russian Defense Ministry’s August 18 briefing.