Russia has already lost more planes in Ukraine than the USSR lost in Afghanistan in 10 years

The air war in the Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the indicators of the progress of this campaign for the invaders.

The Ukrainian Air Force shows off its F-16 fighters, revealing some details
Ukraine vs Afghanistan: the military losses of the USSR in ten years and those of Russia in two

Today marks 1,000 days since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The first days of the invasion were a severe blow to Ukrainian aviation, due to the massive attack that the country had to endure at the hands of a much more powerful invader. However, as the months went by, the tables have turned and the balance has become unfavorable for Russia, suffering in 33 months of war losses of fixed-wing aircraft that are already greater than those suffered by the USSR in ten years in Afghanistan.

In February I indicated here the Russian losses in that war, taking as reference two works: "The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost", a comprehensive study written by 16 military analysts of the Russian General Staff and translated into English in 2002 by the University of Kansas; and "The Soviet-Afghan War: Breaking the Hammer & Sickle", written in 2006 by Lt. Col. (ret.) Lester W. Grau of the U.S. Army and Col. (ret.) Ali Ahmad Jalali of the Afghan National Army, who fought against that Soviet invasion.

In Afghanistan, the USSR lost 118 fixed-wing aircraft – a huge number considering that the Afghan insurgents did not even have an air force. In addition, the Soviets lost 333 helicopters – a huge number which, as in the case of aircraft, is explained by the fact that the US supplied the Afghan rebels with short-range Stinger portable surface-to-air missiles.

For the Soviets, these figures meant losing air dominance over Afghanistan, which seriously hampered their ground operations, in turn causing serious losses of tanks (147), armored infantry and personnel carriers (1,314), artillery systems (433) and trucks (11,369), in addition to 14,453 soldiers killed and 53,753 wounded. With this result, finally the invasion of Afghanistan became the USSR’s Vietnam War, exposing its military weaknesses and contributing to the fall of the communist dictatorship in that country in 1991, two years after the Soviet withdrawal from that mountainous Asian country.

According to Oryxspioenkop.com, an independent website that has been documenting Russian losses with graphic material since the start of the invasion, Russia has already lost 132 fixed-wing aircraft in Ukraine – more than the USSR in Afghanistan – but in a much shorter time period. Those losses include 117 aircraft destroyed and 15 damaged.

Significantly, the hardest hit planes are attack aircraft, with 36 Sukhoi Su-34s and 35 Su-25s lost, the vast majority destroyed. Russia has also lost 10 Su-24 fighters and 12 Su-30 fighters, among other models. But what is most significant about the Russian losses is that they include some particularly valuable planes, such as 4 Tupolev Tu-22M3 strategic bombers, a Tu-95MS strategic bomber and 2 Beriev A-50 Mainstay early warning aircraft, all of which are irreplaceable. The A-50 Mainstays have been the most expensive shootdowns that Ukrainian forces have managed to carry out: each one costs $330 million.

In addition to the serious Russian losses in fixed-wing aircraft, there were 147 helicopters, less than half the helicopters lost by the USSR in Afghanistan, although this figure is not exactly encouraging for Russia, since these losses are proportionally much greater than those suffered by the Soviets in Afghanistan, since we are talking about a war that has not yet lasted 3 years (the one in Ukraine) compared to another that lasted 10 years (Afghanistan).

As with aircraft, attack helicopters are the worst offenders: 62 Kamov Ka-52 Alligators in total. The second most lost helicopter model is a transport model, the Mil Mi-8 (38 lost in total), which has been the workhorse of Russian airborne troops for decades. These figures are evidence of what is happening in Ukraine: Russia is no longer able to provide air support for its ground operations, which explains its extremely slow progress at the cost of many human casualties. Something that does not seem to worry Putin, who maintains the old philosophy of Soviet leaders who despise the lives of their soldiers as if they were cannon fodder worth sacrificing.

Of course, Oryxspioenkop.com also reports Ukrainian losses: 101 aircraft and 50 helicopters, which are considerably lower than the Russian ones. In the case of aircraft, the most damaged models are those that Ukraine already had at the beginning of the war. So far, Russia has only managed to shoot down one F-16, but let us remember that the Ukrainian Air Force plans to receive up to 129 F-16s and some Mirage 2000s. As with land-based weapons, Ukraine is able to compensate for its losses with Western aid, while the Russian military industry is unable to cover its own losses due to Western sanctions.

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Main photo: Russian Ministry of Defense. A Sukhoi Su-34 attack aircraft, the model with the highest losses of the Russian air force in this war.