Russia’s MiG-31 Crews Are Shooting At Ukrainian Pilots From A Hundred Miles Away—And The Ukrainians Can’t Shoot Back

It’s no secret the Russian air force has failed to achieve air superiority in the sky over Ukraine.

Hamstrung by inflexible procedures, desperately short of precision weaponry and battered by stiff Ukrainian air defenses, the Russian Vozdushno-kosmicheskiye sily, or VKS, at best is holding its own over Ukraine, despite a 10-to-1 numerical advantage in fighters and attack jets compared with the Ukrainian air force.

But that doesn’t mean the Russians are doing everything wrong. The three regiments flying the VKS’s best interceptor—the twin-engine, two-seat Mikoyan MiG-31BM—are winning where most of the rest of the air force is losing.

MiG-31 crews, flying high-altitude defensive patrols along the ever-shifting front lines and firing powerful Vympel R-37M air-to-air missiles, in recent weeks apparently have shot down several Ukrainian jets. The Ukrainians’ own fighters and missiles lack the speed, range and altitude performance to fight back effectively.

The VKS’s defensive patrols “have proven highly effective against Ukrainian attack aircraft and fighters, with the MiG-31BM and R-37M long-range air-to-air missile being especially problematic,” Justin Bronk, Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling wrote in a new study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The 24-ton MiG-31, which first flew in 1975, is a rare beast. It’s an evolution of the classic, Cold War-vintage Mikoyan MiG-25, a plane the Russians designed specifically to intercept supersonic U.S. Air Force bombers on nuclear attack runs. Today around 90 modernized MiG-31BMs equip three regiments, at least one of which has deployed jets to Belbek air base in Russian-occupied Crimea for sorties over Ukraine.

The MiG-31 flies higher, faster and farther than the Ukrainian air force’s best Sukhoi Su-27 interceptors. The heavyweight fighter can fly as high as 60,000 feet out to 450 miles and dash at Mach 2.5 for short periods.

From their lofty perch, MiG-31 crews can search for targets with the jet’s Zaslon radar and fire a single, underbelly R-37M at targets as far as 200 miles away, although the missile works best at ranges no farther than 80 miles. A Ukrainian Su-27 by contrast can fire a Vympel R-27 missile no farther than 50 miles.

When the Ukrainian army launched twin counteroffensives in the east and south starting in late August, the VKS maintained around-the-clock patrols in eight zones over Ukraine, each patrol involving a pair of MiG-31s or a pair of Sukhoi Su-35s.

The patrols were hunting for Ukrainian attack planes—Sukhoi Su-25s, Sukhoi Su-24s and Mikoyan MiG-29s—supporting the counteroffensives. Outside analysts have confirmed Ukraine has lost four MiG-29s, six Su-25s and an Su-24 as well as one Su-27 since the counteroffensives kicked off in late August.

It’s unclear how many of those kills the MiG-31 crews can claim. Probably several. “The VKS has been firing up to six R-37Ms per day during October,” Bronk, Reynolds and Watling wrote, “and the extremely high speed of the weapon, coupled with very long effective range and a seeker designed for engaging low-altitude targets, makes it particularly difficult to evade.”

The VKS has written off one MiG-31 in a non-combat accident in Crimea. Other than that, the interceptor crews are unscathed in the current war. Shooting at Ukrainians who can’t shoot back.

The closest Ukrainian forces have come to landing a blow on the MiG-31 force was their one-time bombardment of Belbek air base back in October. The apparent rocket strike on the base destroyed or damaged several Russian planes, but none of them were MiG-31s.