Tasseone of Russia’s state news agencies claimed on Monday that virtually all Ukrainian pilots had been eliminated by Moscow forces, but a new video released by the Ukrainians on Tuesday suggests otherwise.

Ukrainian MiG-29 launches anti-radar missiles received from the USPhoto: video shooting

“The entire qualified operational staff of the former aviation of Ukraine – MiG-29, Su-27 and Su-25 aircraft – was practically eliminated by the effective actions of the Air Force and Air Defense Forces of Russia,” the “diplomatic source” reports. of the military,” TASS quoted a day ago.

It is also said that the West will not fulfill its promise to deliver Soviet-made aircraft to Ukraine, which are in service with the air forces of some NATO states in Eastern Europe.

Ukraine has not yet received planes from other countries

Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced in early July that his country could become the first country to supply Ukraine with fighter jets since the start of a “special military operation” on February 24, but no country has yet made a firm commitment.

Heger’s remarks came as Slovakia is due to give up its Soviet MiG-29 jets and the country’s airspace will be guarded by Poland and the Czech Republic until the arrival of American F-16s purchased by Bratislava.

At the beginning of March, Poland announced that it wanted to transfer its MiG-29s to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but the Pentagon rejected the offer to transfer them first to the US and then to Ukraine, and Warsaw apparently later abandoned this intention.

Therefore, it is not clear what “promises” the source cited by TASS journalists is referring to, but it also says that Ukraine was forced to turn to poorly trained cadets from its air force academy due to a large number of pilot losses, which led to “catastrophic losses in what remained of Ukrainian aviation”.

The Ukrainian pilots’ response to the release of the Russians

But on Tuesday, the Ukrainian armed forces released a startling video showing their MiG-29 fighter jets starting to use AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles, which Kyiv received from the United States.

AGM-88 missiles appear to be launched from launchers that typically contain R-27 air-to-air missiles.

This is not the first time that Russia has made dubious claims about the success of its forces against Ukrainian aviation. The Russian Defense Ministry has said since May that Russian forces have shot down 165 Ukrainian military aircraft, which is more than the total number Ukraine had at the start of the war.

In a report released last Wednesday, six months after President Vladimir Putin launched the war, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said the number of Ukrainian planes it had shot down had reached 268.

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