Air power counts for little in Ukraine war as caution prevails on both sides

“It is important to remember that we are only five days into what could easily turn into a protracted campaign,” wrote Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, on Monday in a paper titled “The Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force”. “The fact that there have only been a few confirmed sightings of Russian fixed-wing sorties over Ukraine should not obscure the fact that the [Russian] fighter fleets remain a potentially highly destructive force, and one that could be unleashed against aerial and fixed ground targets at short notice over the coming days,” he added.