Ukraine’s Best Fighter Pilots Are Preparing For War. But Will They Fight?

The Ukrainian air force is hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned by its most likely foe, the Russian air force.

Kiev at best can muster just 125 front-line warplanes. Of these, 71 are fighters. Of the fighters, the 34 active twin-engine Su-27 Flankers and their expert pilots stand the best chance of making any dent at all in the punishing bombing campaign that could precede a wider Russian offensive across Ukraine’s Donbas region.

The best Su-27s, and best pilots, belong to a single brigade with two squadrons, based at Mirgorod, in north-central Ukraine east of the Dnieper River, which bisects the country from north to south.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to escalate the eight-year war in eastern Ukraine, watch the 831st Tactical Aviation Brigade at Mirgorod. If the brigade’s Su-27s rise to meet Russian planes, it’s a sign that the Ukrainian air force—which has sat out the campaign in Donbas since suffering heavy losses in 2015—intends to fight.

In any event, the battle might be brief. Against Ukraine’s six dozen fighters, the Russian air force can deploy many hundreds of newer and more-capable jets.

The 831st Brigade has a long history. Forming in 1941 as part of the Soviet air force, it battled German forces along the Baltic front.

In 1991 Ukraine inherited from the collapsing USSR the brigade and its Su-27S interceptors and two-seat Su-27UB trainers, the oldest of which were just six years old. In 2002, a Ukrainian Su-27 crashed at an air show in Lviv, killing 77 people—the worst air-show disaster in history.

After disposals and sales, Kiev’s air force settled on a two-brigade structure for its roughly 55 surviving Su-27s.

The 831st with its two squadrons had the most Flankers. The 39th Brigade, at Ozerne air base west of the Dnieper, had one squadron with slightly newer Su-27Ps. Ukrainian industry worked up a modest upgrade program to bring select Flankers up to the M1-standard with a new flight recorder and tweaks to their electronics.

More importantly, the Sukhois began undergoing a $3-million-per-jet tear-down and overhaul to keep them flying through 2030.

But the pace of upgrades and overhauls was slow. And over the course of 20 years, the Ukrainian Flanker fleet steadily declined to just a dozen or so operational jets. Those few fighters were powerless to stop the Russians and Russian-backed separatists from seizing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and much of Donbas the following year.

After a spate of shoot-downs over Donbas in 2014 and 2015 in which some 60 Ukrainians died, Kiev pulled its aircraft out of the war zone. The fighting continued. The air force played no meaningful role.

Which is not to say the 831st lacks teeth. The brigade kept growing as more upgraded planes arrived from the Zaparozhie Aircraft Repair Plant. Today it owns as many as 25 Su-27s, most of them the Su-27Ss. Around a third have gotten the M1 upgrade.

When the Ukrainian air force plays in international exercises and air shows, the 831st usually takes the lead. The brigade hosted U.S. Air Force F-15s from the California Air National Guard in 2011 and 2018. A two-seat Flanker crashed during the latter exercise, killing the Ukrainian pilot and an American officer riding the back seat.

Between them, the two Flanker brigades have 34 active jets. Another dozen or so are in overhaul. In addition to defending eastern Ukraine, the 831st also maintains the air force’s three-jet detachment in Odessa on the Black Sea coast.

In November, the Ukrainian defense ministry celebrated the 831st Brigade’s anniversary. “The main areas of service activity remained unchanged: combat duty on air-defense of important state facilities and constant readiness to perform assigned tasks.” The following month, the brigade practiced night missions.

With their supersonic speed, 60-mile-range radars and R-27 air-to-air missiles, Kiev’s Su-27s, despite their advanced age, still are some of the most powerful interceptors in the region. But that doesn’t mean they’ll last long against the Russians.

It’s not even totally clear Ukraine’s leaders will risk losing them in a battle they justifiably believe they can’t win.