Dreaming high: why Britain has started talking about controlling Ukrainian skies
The UK Ministry of Defence is considering the possibility of its air force patrolling Ukrainian airspace after the active phase of hostilities is over. However, experts note that the British do not have sufficient capabilities for this from either a political or military point of view. Izvestia looked into what the patrolling could look like, how realistic it is and what the British Air Force is today.
"Britain will be the first to join the American position."
Britain is considering the possibility of organizing patrols of Ukrainian airspace after the fighting on its territory stops, writes The Times. It is not a question of immediately moving British planes and entering, respectively, into clashes with the Russian air force. For now, British politicians are discussing future plans. They are probably probing both their own and international public opinion.
It is premature to talk about a full-fledged peacekeeping mission and possible air patrols in the skies over Ukraine until official statements are made at the level of the Foreign Ministry and the British government, says Vasily Klimov, a researcher at the Center for International Security of the IMEMO Institute of International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences and associate professor at the MGIMO of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
- Such statements made at the level of the British establishment may cause London to lose points on the negotiating field. Obviously, Russia and the US have already made some progress, and I don't think the UK wants to fall behind this general trend, it will want to be involved in any case. And if even France can insist on its special vision of the situation, the UK will be the first to join the American position," he said.
According to the expert, Europe is offended that Trump did not take into account its position on Ukraine, and it will try to insist on its own, using it in trade disputes with the United States.
- If suddenly the Europeans do not stand up to the position of the United States, it will be a radical upheaval in transatlantic relations," he believes.
It is noteworthy that, according to the YouGov Institute for Public Opinion Research, 58% of the country's residents support the idea of sending the British military to Ukraine. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer Britons are in favor of prolonging the conflict for the sake of Kiev's victory. Their number has fallen from 50 to 36%. At the same time, the number of those who support a negotiated cessation of hostilities, even if Russia retains control over some parts of Ukraine, has risen to 32%.
Moscow warned Europeans in any case that the presence of peacekeepers from NATO countries in Ukraine remains unacceptable to Russia. "The expansion of NATO, the absorption of Ukraine by the North Atlantic Alliance is a direct threat to our sovereignty... The appearance of troops, armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a foreign flag, under the flag of the European Union or national flags does not change anything in this regard, it is certainly unacceptable for us," Foreign Minister Lavrov said at a news conference following talks in Riyadh.
What are the chances of Western planes in a battle with Russian ones
The UK could deploy the planes in Poland or Romania and anywhere around Ukraine, just as Western countries deployed the F-16s given to Kiev there - out of fear that Russia would destroy them on Ukrainian territory, former French pilot, aviation expert and geopolitics and strategy analyst Cyrille de Lattre explained in a conversation with Izvestia.
- The question is also what the number of these planes will be. Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker refueling planes and long-range radar detection aircraft may also be deployed. When people talk about airplanes, they often focus on their flight characteristics, but the maintenance aspect is also important. Take the F-16 for example: one hour of flight time is 18 hours of maintenance. That includes engine maintenance, instrument maintenance, weapons maintenance, and so on. If you have six mechanics, maintenance takes three hours. But one person can't do that. As for the Eurofighter Typhoon, they require 12 to 15 hours of maintenance for one hour of flight. All this will require a lot of effort from the West," he said.
The expert believes that in any case Western pilots would be wary of engaging in direct confrontation with Russian pilots.
- There are several things to consider. We will be talking about fighter jets, which will be either at high altitude or flying at low altitude, receiving information from long-range radar detection aircraft, which will be deployed outside Ukrainian airspace to give information about the position of Russian aircraft. At the same time, Russian air defense aircraft carry air-to-air missiles capable of covering a distance of 300 kilometers. Whereas, for example, similar American AMRAAM missiles can cover a distance of no more than 250 kilometers," he added.
Much depends on the class of the pilot, Cyril de Lattre continues, but under equal conditions, neither the F-16, nor the French Mirage 2000, nor the Eurofighter have any chance of winning in such a confrontation with Russian pilots.
- Their chances of survival would be extremely slim, and the first Western aircraft shot down by the Russian Armed Forces would be a terrible anti-advertisement for Western aviation. If Russia says it will not tolerate the presence of Western peacekeepers on Ukrainian territory, this applies to its airspace as well," he concluded.
What capabilities the British Air Force has
The British Air Force has 160 generation 4+ Eurofighter Typhoon fighters to carry out such air patrol and air defense missions. The twin-engine aircraft is produced by a European consortium, including the British corporation BAE Systems. The machine was adopted into service in 2003 and forms the basis of the fighter aviation of the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain. It has also been supplied to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.
The aircraft is quite expensive - more than twice as expensive as the American F-16, Swedish Grippen or Russian MiG-35. In terms of its combat capabilities, the machine is serious - 13 knots of suspension and up to 7.5 tons of armament. All armament is externally suspended, and the airplane does not have any unique stealth capabilities. High speed (2.25 M at altitude), high rate of climb (315 m/s) and relatively long range (combat radius up to 1390 km). The machine is maneuverable, but the engines are not equipped with a controlled thrust vector, and therefore, our MiG-35 and the more so Su-35S have greater super maneuverability, and Typhoon is inferior to our aircraft here. In simulated battles, which were held in 2004 with American F-15s, British Typhoon won conditional victories due to greater maneuverability and the use of more advanced radar with phased antenna array.
Of course, in the case of the Eurofighter Typhoon, we cannot speak of complete and total superiority of our close-generation aircraft over it, but, judging by all appearances, such machines as the Su-57 and MiG-31BM, and even more so with the ultra-long-range R-37M missile, the British aircraft is unlikely to be able to successfully resist. Typhoon also poses no problems for Russian ground-based air defense systems, as all of our modern SAMs were created with this aircraft in mind. For modern Thor, S-400 and Pantsirei, this aircraft is an ordinary, non-unique target.
What conditions are necessary for patrolling the skies of Ukraine
What could Britain's proposal be? The very task of patrolling the nearly 1,000-kilometer border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine requires serious resources. So far, the air forces of NATO countries have practiced patrols in the airspace of the Baltic States, but usually only a few aircraft were used there on a rotational basis, i.e. for a month or two the aircraft of one or another country were assigned to air bases in the Baltic States and made sorties there on the instructions of NATO air control centers. In the case of Ukraine, firstly, it is necessary to deploy such infrastructure on the territory of the country. And secondly, dozens of airplanes will be needed to ensure patrolling. And all together this means the presence of NATO armed formations on the territory of Ukraine.
A more serious NATO intervention could only be the deployment of ground forces. Britain's The Daily Telegraph reports on a proposal to deploy up to 30,000 "peacekeepers" from the bloc's European countries in Ukraine. Such a proposal was discussed the other day during a meeting of European leaders in Paris. The solution was proposed by the UK and France and includes the deployment of troops along the entire line of contact between the two countries, as well as in major cities in eastern Ukraine and at all infrastructure facilities. The deployment of Western "peacekeepers" is expectedly opposed by Germany, Spain and Italy. And, of course, such deployment is much more labor-intensive and explosive than organizing air patrols. And the cost of a full-fledged presence of armed forces on foreign territory would be many times greater. In this sense, the air patrol program looks like a budget solution. Although it is likely that Britain will try to spread the costs among several participants of the operation, involving other countries in the program.
But all these plans still exist as if in airless space and have no point of reference to reality. The fact is that they do not take into account the categorical position of the Russian Federation in the issue of deployment of any forces of individual countries or the NATO bloc itself on the territory of Ukraine. And, most likely, British politicians will not be able to ignore the opinion of the Russian Federation this time, but will have to reckon with it. Thus, all these proposals remain just a reason for discussion in the press and no more.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
