Ukrainian and Russian Su-25 Pilots Alike Face A Potentially Bloody War

The war in Ukraine has been brutal for fighter pilots and helicopter crews whose job it is to provide close air support to front-line ground troops. The sheer density of surface-to-air missiles and guns on both sides of the conflict means every CAS mission must pass through a veritable wall of steel.

The fixed-wing type that has suffered the worst losses unsurprisingly is the type that must fly closest to the front: the Su-25 Frogfoot attack jet.

During its brief, doomed air campaign against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas in 2014 and 2015, the beleaguered Ukrainian air force lost five Su-25s to enemy action. Those shoot-downs, combined with other losses, compelled Kiev to pull its aircraft from Donbas, leaving the troops there without air cover.

Russian Frogfoots apparently didn’t play a major role in the fighting eight years ago, but they’re set to take part in the event Russia widens its war in Ukraine, as many analysts believe is increasingly likely.

Expect casualties … on both sides. Russian Su-25 regiments suffered heavy losses during Russia’s invasion of the Republic of Georgia in 2008. Georgian air-defenders firing old Soviet missiles knocked down six Su-25s in just four days.

Ukraine’s air-defenses are even more fearsome than Georgia’s were—and could pose an even greater threat to the low-flying, subsonic Frogfoots as they line up to fire guns and rockets and drop bombs.

Ukraine’s own Su-25 losses were particularly shocking considering that, at the time, the air force operated no more than three dozen of the stubby planes, all left over from Soviet regiments that remained in Ukraine following the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Fifteen percent of the force fell in combat in the span of a few months.

Surface-to-air missiles—some fired from inside Donbas, others reportedly launched by Russian units across the border—downed at least four of Kiev’s Frogfoots. There were reports that the fifth Su-25 fell to a Russian MiG-29 fighter.

The losses underscored the Su-25s’ vulnerability. The Frogfoot’s tough airframe and comparatively thick armor can’t save it when the very nature of the CAS mission requires flying straight into some of the most dangerous airspace on Earth.

But where the high cost of fixed-wing CAS has motivated the U.S. Air Force to try more than once in recent years to dispose of its own A-10 attack jets—proposals Congress consistently has rejected—neither the Ukrainian nor Russian air force has given up on the mission.

After restoring many of its old, grounded Frogfoots, the Ukrainian air force now operates around 31 of the planes in a single brigade at Mykolaiv on the Black Sea coast. Another dozen or so remain in storage.

The Russian air force for its part has nearly 200 Su-25s in four regiments plus an independent squadron. Three regiments with five squadrons between them—around 80 Frogfoots, in all—belong to the Southern Military District, whose forces are within easy striking range of Ukraine.

Russia in recent months has built up a huge force along the border with Ukraine—thousands of vehicles for scores of battalion tactical groups with potentially 100,000 troops or more—possibly signalling an imminent escalation of the war.

During an earlier phase of the build-up last spring, the Russians staged Su-25s at airfields closer to Ukraine before pulling them back in May. It would take just a few days at most to return scores of Frogfoots to forward bases. One squadron recently deployed to Belarus for an exercise and might stick around, placing it close to the potential front line.

The Ukrainians, meanwhile, are preparing for war. Kiev’s own Frogfoot pilots took part in a large-scale air exercise in December. During the war game, they showed off their signature, ultra-low flying—a profile that’s supposed to help them avoid detection by enemy gunners until the jets are directly overhead.

It’s highly uncertain that low flying will save them.