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Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Sky supremacy: Why Israel owns Iran's skies-Russia still can't crack Ukraine's
Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze after a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP photo) In the fourth day of open war between Israel and Iran, both countries are reeling from mutual missile attacks, a mounting civilian toll, and a grim sense that the conflict has only just begun. Israeli jets struck Iranian military, nuclear, and command infrastructure as far east as Mashhad. Iran retaliated by launching hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones into Israeli cities, killing more than two dozen civilians and injuring hundreds. Yet despite the chaos, one strategic truth has crystallized: Israel now owns Iran's skies. Israeli aircraft are flying unhindered over Iran's capital, dropping bombs from within Iranian territory-something that the Russian Air Force has conspicuously failed to accomplish in Ukraine after more than three years of war. The contrast is not just tactical; it's philosophical. The current war began Friday with a surprise Israeli strike that destroyed much of Iran's top military command, set back its nuclear program, and cratered air defense installations across western Iran. Since then, Israeli air power has dismantled nearly a third of Iran's surface-to-surface missile launchers and taken out key leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meanwhile, Iranian salvos continue to rain down on Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Petah Tikva, with civilian deaths rising by the hour. The destruction on both sides is immense. But Israel, unlike Russia, has secured the rarest-and arguably most decisive-military advantage in modern warfare: unchallenged control of enemy airspace. Why air superiority matters The Israeli campaign, as devastating as it is, also underscores a broader lesson about 21st-century warfighting: whoever controls the skies controls the tempo, scale, and eventual outcome of the fight. 'The two campaigns are showing the fundamental importance of air superiority in order to succeed in your overall military objectives,' retired US Air Force Lt Gen David Deptula told the Wall Street Journal. 'In the case of Russia-Ukraine war, you see what happens when neither side can achieve air superiority: stalemate and devolution to attrition-based warfare. In the case of the Israel-Iran war, it allows them unhindered freedom to attack where they possess air superiority over segments of Iran. ' That freedom has translated into a relentless bombing campaign using a blend of fifth-generation stealth F-35s-custom-modified by Israel-and older, more expendable F-15s and F-16s once Iran's air defenses were degraded. Now, Israel is relying more on cheap, plentiful guided bombs like the JDAM and Spice kits instead of expensive long-range missiles. The effect: more strikes, lower cost, and more devastation. Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, Chief of Staff of the Israeli military, described the offensive with cold precision. 'IAF pilots are flying at great risk to their lives, hundreds of kilometers away from Israel, striking hundreds of different targets with precision,' he said. What Russia couldn't-and can't-do The success stands in stark contrast to Russia's ongoing frustrations in Ukraine. Despite possessing one of the largest air forces in the world, Russia has failed to establish air dominance over its neighbor. Its jets still do not operate freely over Kyiv or other major Ukrainian cities. Instead, the war has devolved into trench fighting, artillery duels, and long-range missile attacks-precisely the scenario Israeli planners worked to avoid. Why the difference? As per the WSJ report, one reason is qualitative. 'The asymmetry in capability between Israel's air force and Russia's is vast and can be easily observed,' Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and an expert on Russian and Ukrainian militaries, told the WSJ. Israeli pilots fly with tighter integration into cyber and intelligence operations. Their training emphasizes maneuver, autonomy, and real-time decision-making. Russian pilots, by contrast, fly what retired British Air Marshal Edward Stringer calls 'flying artillery.' 'All the Russians have is pilots,' Stringer said. 'They grow these pilots to drive flying artillery, and that's it.' Iran's fatal miscalculation Israel's air war has benefited from something else: Iran's glaring strategic blind spots. Over decades, Tehran invested in missile deterrence-not air defense. And when the attacks began, Iran's air defense system-an ad-hoc mix of S-300s, Chinese knockoffs, and home-built batteries-was overwhelmed. 'Iran never relied on air defenses alone to ward off attacks like this. The idea was always to use deterrence,' said Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. But deterrence failed. Iran's strongest deterrent, Hezbollah, was crippled last year and physically cut off by Israel's destruction of the Syrian corridor. Israeli strikes on Syrian air-defense systems effectively opened a corridor-a 'superhighway'-for Israeli planes to reach Iranian airspace unopposed. Unlike Ukraine, which used early US intelligence in 2022 to scatter and conceal its mobile air defenses, Iran was caught by surprise. Israeli intelligence operatives and drones sabotaged key systems on the ground in the hours before the first wave of strikes. Simultaneously, Mossad assassinated top military leaders in their homes. 'What Israel did with Iran is what Russia wanted to do with Ukraine,' Israeli analyst Michael Horowitz told the Journal. 'But it turned out that the Ukrainian society has a resilience and cannot be so easily penetrated-whereas when it comes to Iran, the regime is so unpopular that it's easy to find people there who will agree to work with Israel.' The numbers game For now, Israeli generals believe time is on their side. Iran's missile attacks continue, but with one-third of its launchers gone and Israeli jets flying freely, the odds are shifting. 'It's a numbers game, and it seems like Israel has the upper hand,' said retired US Air Force Gen. Timothy Ray. 'After all, the best way to shoot a missile is on the ground while it's in a container, and not in the air while it's flying.' Ray's comment reveals the brutal calculus behind air campaigns: preemptive destruction isn't just tactical-it's strategic, psychological, and political. With Iran reeling and international pressure mounting, Israel may have redefined modern air warfare. Not since the opening days of the Gulf War has a country so swiftly gained dominance over an adversary's skies. And as Russia grinds on in the mud of eastern Ukraine, Israel has flown past in the stratosphere-proving that supremacy in the air remains the shortest path to power on the ground.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Russian air attack damaged Boeing offices in Ukraine, FT reports
(Reuters) -A building used by Boeing in Kyiv was badly damaged in a recent large-scale Russian air attack, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing six people familiar with the matter and photographs seen by the newspaper. Russia launched air attacks on Kyiv early last week, using 315 drones and seven missiles in strikes that also hit other parts of the country, Ukraine's Air Force said on Tuesday. Boeing's building was among the targets hit on Sunday night, the newspaper reported, citing two Boeing employees, three Ukrainian officials and the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. Despite the damage to its building in Kyiv, there had been "no operational disruption", Andriy Koryagin, deputy general director of Boeing's operation in Ukraine, told the newspaper. Another official Boeing spokesperson declined to comment to the Financial Times on the attack, except to say that the U.S. plane maker prioritises the safety and security of its employees, none of whom were harmed during the bombardment. Boeing employs more than 1,000 people across Ukraine, according to the report. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. Boeing and the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russian Su-25 jet reportedly crashes in Donetsk Oblast
Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated. A Russian SU-25 fighter jet reportedly crashed over Donetsk Oblast on June 13, Russian social media channels reported. Videos posted on social media of the purported crash by bloggers with close ties to the Russian Air Force appear to show the plane crashing into a field after closely being followed by another fighter jet. The circumstances of the crash remain unclear as rumours swirl of Russian 'friendly fire' as a potential cause of the crash. The Kyiv Independent cannot independently verify the crash or the details surrounding it. Neither the Ukrainian nor Russian military have commented on the reported crash. The Su-25, a Soviet-designed close-air support aircraft developed by Sukhoi in the late 1970s, is built for battlefield survivability. It features heavy armor and can withstand enemy fire. The aircraft has been widely used in various conflicts, including in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and, more recently, in Ukraine, where both Russian and Ukrainian forces operate the platform. Ukraine has downed multiple Russian Su-25s throughout the war. On Feb. 8, Ukraine's military reported shooting down a Russian Su-25 near the town of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast. In another instance, Russia's Defense Ministry said on on March 24 that Russian Su-25 attack aircraft crashed during a routine training flight in Primorye Krai in Russia's Far East. The incident comes less than two week following Ukraine's 'Operation Spiderweb' in which Ukrainian drones smuggled deep inside Russia and hidden inside trucks struck as many as 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airfields across the country. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian MiG-29 strikes Russian drone hub, ammo depot in Zaporizhzhia direction, releases video We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Forbes
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Ukraine's Effects-Based Precision Guided Munition Strikes: Implications
Ukrainian munition hitting Russian bomber On June 1, 2025, Ukraine launched a bold and innovative series of attacks against four Russian airbases, including some deep within Russian territory. As the world now knows, they used precision-guided munitions in the form of inexpensive quadcopters armed with small explosive charges. This operation, termed Operation Spider Web, was notable not only for the destruction of valuable Russian combat aircraft, but also for its profound strategic implications. These attacks exemplified an effects-based approach to operations by employing innovative means to achieve desired strategic outcomes in unconventional ways. Through these actions, Ukraine demonstrated that it is fighting smarter than the Russians, which highlights a potential strategy to defeat Russia's attrition-based combat approach. Central to any large-scale military campaign is the beneficial objective of gaining and maintaining control of the airspace—air superiority—to ensure freedom from attack, while also enabling optimal offensive operations. Counter-air operations, especially offensive counter-air missions targeting enemy aircraft on the ground, are critical to achieving this goal. Such missions traditionally involve coordinated efforts by strike packages of fighters, bombers, suppression of enemy air defense aircraft, and aerial refueling tankers to penetrate defended airspace and disable enemy command and control, communications, aircraft, airbases, and associated logistics support. Ukraine, lacking long-range bombers, possessing only a small number of modern strike fighters, no aerial tankers, minimal suppression of enemy air defense capability, and a limited stock of long-range missiles, applied non-traditional methods to achieve offensive counter-air effects. The result was the destruction or damage of multiple Russian bomber aircraft on the ground, thereby reducing Russia's capacity to launch offensive attacks against Ukraine. Most analyses describe Operation Spider Web as a special operations raid. Implementing an effects-based strategy goes beyond that approach. This type of strategy could be applied across all operational domains and employed by all military service components. The methodology aims to incorporate alternative actions that are effective against an enemy, moving beyond traditional force-on-force doctrines reliant on attrition to achieve exhaustion of an opponent. Instead of fighting an enemy in a linear fashion—blow for blow—the objective is to land a series of leveraged punches that deliver outsized impacts. This approach offers Ukraine the best chance to achieve its objectives against Russia. Russia's strategy hinges on leveraging its numerical superiority in troops, artillery, and other warfighting materiel to prevail in a prolonged war of attrition. Ukraine must execute its military operations to greater effect—as illustrated by its June 1st attacks. Ukraine should expand this approach to the entirety of key Russian centers of gravity—not only the counter-air target set. An effects-based strategy involves identification of and planning for alternative courses of action aimed at changing adversary behavior to achieve desired outcomes that ultimately support Ukraine's overall military and political objectives. These attacks represent more than tactical successes; they provide a broader strategic framework demonstrating how asymmetric innovation can serve as an alternative to brute force. By focusing on specific outcomes rather than engaging in direct large-scale confrontations, Ukraine showcases a viable path to victory. The principle is clear: in warfare, strategic insight and operational innovation can be more decisive than numerical superiority alone. It remains uncertain whether Ukraine will adopt this approach as the basis of its strategy against Russia, but doing so would likely increase their chances of success. As would the U.S. and Ukraine's western allies equipping Ukrainian forces to facilitate their success. That outcome is directly tied to securing U.S. critical national security objectives. Commentators assessing Operation Spider Web largely focus on aircraft vulnerabilities. However, the implications of recent attacks on infantry, tanks, ships, logistics, power generation, and other targets using inexpensive, small, and numerous precision guided munitions (lethal drones) are significant. These small uninhabited aerial vehicles have undeniably changed the character of warfare. Accurate assessment and realistic understanding of their implications are essential to capitalize on this reality. The actual effects of small lethal drones are many. Perhaps the most significant in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war is that they provide individual soldiers access and control of precision guided munitions. Before this war, these were generally only applied in quantity by combat aircraft. Facing an existential threat, Ukraine came up with a means to effectively defend themselves while compensating for their weapons deficiencies in both capability and capacity relative to Russia. Their solution was to develop cheap, numerous, easy to produce and tactically effective precision guided munitions, largely quadcopters delivering explosive charges, along with relatively inexpensive cruise missiles to give Ukraine the ability to strike critical targets in Russia. While the media is focusing on Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian airpower, their most effective use to date is in countering conventional infantry and armor engagements. Indeed, today nominally 80 percent of the targets engaged by Ukrainian Army units on the front lines are by portable precision guided munitions/ drones—we may be witnessing artillery being replaced by drones as the new 'king of the battlefield.' The vulnerability of aircraft—along with infantry, tanks, ships, etc.—in the open should not be a surprise to anyone. During the Cold War, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and in Korea were virtually all positioned in hardened aircraft shelters. The U.S. military leadership of the day understood the consequences of unprotected forward-deployed combat aircraft and were not willing to take that risk. With respect to forces based in the continental United States, the oceans were then still considered to be an effective defense. That is no longer the case. Portable precision guided munitions/ drones can be concealed and transported near the area of intended use by other means to overcome vast ocean distances. Not requiring complex or expensive construction, indigenous drones are easily constructed, Note the drone incidents that occurred at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base in December of 2023. The drone operators could have very easily executed a Ukrainian-style attack had they desired. A playbook titled 'Unrestricted Warfare' detailing non-traditional methods to accomplish desired effects was written by two Chinese Air Force colonels in 1999. It describes how China plans to nullify U.S. defenses using asymmetric means. We are on notice and the warning indicators have been blinking red for years. No one should be surprised that adversaries intend to hold U.S. forces overseas and in the continental U.S. at risk. Lethal drones provide a cheap, high volume, and effective means to actualize these sorts of concepts—not only against military targets—but even more leveraged targets in the form of vulnerable civil infrastructure such as electricity power generation, communication and transportation networks, oil, gas, water distribution, etc. The 1941 strike against Pearl Harbor was against a limited set of distant military installations. A modern equivalent could impact a broad range of targets across the U.S. in a very narrow window of time. If executed across a comprehensive set of key targets, America's ability to competently fight could be derailed at the opening of a conflict. Since the end of the Cold War, force protection has not been a priority for the U.S. armed forces or the civil authorities responsible for safeguarding critical infrastructure. This reality stems from a confluence of erroneous strategic assumptions, associated fiscal constraints, bureaucratic inertia, and risk taken based on a low probability of credible threat to justify the cost of protection. These presumptions are no longer tenable. Both the threats to U.S. forces and the capabilities of adversaries have advanced dramatically—and ignoring these changes puts American security at significant risk. As far back as 2004, while serving as the Director of Operations for Pacific Air Forces, I proposed building hardened aircraft shelters on Guam to protect B-2s and F-22s. That proposal was rejected due to insufficient funding. At the time, senior U.S. security leadership accepted the risk of attacks on Guam, and on the continental United States. Two decades later, that mindset is only now beginning to change, despite a radically different threat environment. China, by contrast, has taken the opposite view. It has made significant investments in protecting its airpower by constructing thousands of hardened shelters, underscoring a clear strategic emphasis on survivability. Perhaps the recent proliferation of portable precision-guided munitions/ drones will finally serve as a wake-up call for Department of Defense leadership, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congress to provide the required funding to secure our military assets. The vulnerability of unprotected U.S. air, space, sea, land, and cyber resources is clear. The widespread and innovative use of portable precision-guided munitions by Ukrainian forces has revealed the effectiveness of such weapons, even against major military powers. The U.S. military must respond with resolve. Base and area defense must become a top priority. That includes decentralizing operations, investing in layered defenses, and ensuring that its military forces are adequately protected. Airpower, along with every other element of military power, without assured survivability is a hollow deterrent. It may be rendered ineffective before it can be brought to bear in combat. Ensuring the ability to fight starts with protecting the ability to survive.
Al Arabiya
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Russia downplays damage from Ukraine's airbase drone attack
Russia on Wednesday said that Ukraine's brazen drone attack on nuclear-capable bombers earlier this month was 'purposefully exaggerated,' downplaying the extent of the damage in Moscow's most detailed remarks on the strikes. In a series of daring attacks deep into Russian territory, Ukraine on June 1 targeted military airbases with drones, saying it had damaged dozens of strategic bombers worth $7 billion. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow's nuclear deterrence had 'not suffered significant damage as a result of these actions.' 'The consequences of this attack by Kyiv is being consciously, deliberately, and purposefully exaggerated,' state media reported him as saying. The damaged equipment 'can and will be restored', he added. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Moscow said that some aircraft had 'caught fire', and later vowed revenge. It has called several recent missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, 'retaliation.' Ukraine said earlier that it had damaged 41 Russian aircraft -- around a third of Moscow's strategic aviation fleet. The attacks exposed Russia's air base vulnerabilities, in a massive morale boost for Kyiv after months on the back foot in the conflict. Ukrainian cities have been targeted by Russian air strikes on a near daily basis since Moscow launched its full-scale military offensive in February 2022, forcing millions to flee their homes and decimating much of eastern and southern Ukraine.
