The Russian Aerospace Forces and deterrence

The Russian Aerospace Forces pose a significant challenge to NATO, one that requires a crisis response from European NATO, Justin Bronk writes in this analysis.

Both the UK and Europe as a whole are more reliant today than at any time since the Second World War on airpower for conventional deterrence and the ability to fight successfully if that deterrence fails. This is due to two key factors; the pace of Russian military production and capability growth in key areas as a result of the ongoing war against Ukraine, and significant shifts in the US geopolitical and ideological approach to NATO and European defence under the second Trump Administration. 

It is true that, at the tactical level, the capacity of the Russian Army to conduct manoeuvre warfare at scale has been badly degraded by heavy attrition over more than three years. However, at the regimental echelon and above, it has transformed its ability to rapidly find, fix and strike targets at scale – both on the frontlines and in depth, with a wide range of cross-cued ground and air-based sensors and fires. Contract soldier recruitment and training is running at over 400,000 troops per year in addition to regular conscription waves, and production output of high-end missiles, one-way attack UAVs and modern main battle tanks is outstripping wastage rates from use against Ukraine. 

Meanwhile, European land force inventories are dangerously depleted by decades of underinvestment and years of donations of heavy equipment and ammunition stocks to Ukrainian forces. This means that, if forced to fight without large scale US military support, the ability of European NATO members, including the UK, to repel direct Russian military aggression in the coming years will depend heavily on whether air superiority can be gained and exploited. Without it, European armies would struggle against heavily armed, combat experienced and mass UAV-enabled Russian ground forces in the coming years. So, what are the primary threats and challenges that would need to be overcome to win at least localised air superiority in a direct clash with Russian forces? 

Russia’s IADS, a credible and serious threat

The first, and most serious, is Russia’s extensive ground-based air defence (GBAD) system, which forms the main component of its integrated air defence system (IADS). The Russian IADS has been specifically designed and procured over more than thirty years, to delay and ideally prevent US-led NATO airpower from gaining the freedom to operate with precision guided munitions against Russian forces and bases. The Russian military deploys several thousand individual surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch and radar vehicles in a layered, networked system. It relies on the overlapping, mutually supporting coverage of short range air defence (SHORAD) systems such as the SA-15 Tor and SA-22 Greyhound, medium range air defence (MRAD) systems such as the SA-11/17/27 Buk and long range air defence (LRAD) SAM systems like the SA-21 (S-400) and SA-23 (S-300V4).

All of these Russian GBAD systems are mobile – being based on either wheeled or tracked chassis. As such they can and do regularly reposition between pre-sited or improvised locations to make locating and targeting them more difficult for any attacker. They can also shoot down many types of incoming munitions, and Russian forces now have years of combat experience and have become fairly proficient in intercepting Western PGMs (precision guided munitions) including AGM-88 HARM, G-MLRS, GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, and even ATACMS. These would all be vital munitions in any NATO suppression and destruction of enemy air defences (SEAD/DEAD) campaign to degrade Russia’s GBAD in a direct conflict. The fact that Russian defences would intercept a significant proportion of weapons fired without careful NATO mission planning and layering of other kinetic and non-kinetic suppressive effects is, therefore, an important part of the air domain challenge. It is especially acute in any scenario in which the US is either politically disengaged or lacks the capacity to generate the bulk of a NATO SEAD/DEAD campaign weight in the initial weeks of any war with Russia, due to concurrent Indo-Pacific escalation from Chinese forces. 

The solutions to this Russian GBAD challenge are clear. The UK and other key European airpower nations must urgently invest in dedicated high-end SEAD/DEAD munitions such as AGM-88G AARGM-ER and SPEAR for NATO strike aircraft, and ground-based long-range artillery systems and ammunition suitable for supporting an air-led SEAD/DEAD campaign. At the same time, they must develop the ability to rapidly build large numbers of innovative one-way attack UAVs and stand-in jammer and decoy systems, most likely for primarily ground-launch from fairly near the frontlines, such as the RAF’s Tier 1 autonomous collaborative platforms (ACPs). 

Operational analysis from partnering with Ukrainian forces conducting counter-GBAD strikes on specific Russian LRAD systems such as SA-21 batteries in Crimea leads to a clear conclusion: large numbers of uncrewed, fairly cheap propellor-powered decoy, jamming, one-way attack UAVs and loitering munitions can be hugely effective at suppressing and overloading Russian GBAD self-defence capabilities, to the point at which high-end DEAD weapons like AARGM or ATACMS and G-MLRS can get through to and destroy key radars and launchers. However, the cheap massed systems are a key enabler required to get high-end DEAD munitions through to GBAD targets, not a replacement for those high-end weapons. 

“Cheap massed systems are a key enabler required to get high-end DEAD munitions through to GBAD targets, not a replacement for those high-end weapons.”

There is a huge amount of latent SEAD/DEAD potential currently unrealised across the existing air forces in the UK and Europe, especially among those with increasing fleets of the SEAD-focussed F-35. However, without adequate stocks of the necessary munitions to not only suppress but reliably kill Russian SAM radars rapidly and efficiently in coordination with other suppressive capabilities, having capable aircraft and tactics will not be enough. 

The Russian GBAD target set is extensive and difficult, but it is nevertheless finite and well understood. Ukraine itself, with partner support, has already destroyed hundreds of Russian SAM launcher and radar vehicles over three and a half years of full-scale war. With all of Europe’s wealth and existing air force and wider joint force advantages compared to Ukraine’s, the widespread belief that SEAD/DEAD munitions at a suitable scale aren’t affordable is a political and force planning choice, not a reality set in stone. 

Precision and mass: Russia’s long-range strike

There are two other secondary but still important challenges posed by Russia in the air domain. The more critical of these is the threat posed by long-range precision strikes and insider special services attacks against NATO airpower on its airbases. The Long Range Aviation (LRA) bombers used by the Russian Aerospace Forces can generate salvos of several hundred AS-23 (Kh-101) cruise missiles and a far smaller number of Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles, while Russian submarines lurking in the North Atlantic or Arctic could also contribute cruise missiles and/or Zircon hypersonic quasi-ballistic missiles, in small quantities but much harder to intercept. Ground-based Iskander-M systems could also launch 9M723 ballistic missiles against airbases and other key targets within 500km or so of Russian-held territory, although they could not reach the UK. 

The spectacular Ukrainian special services attack on the LRA force in May 2025 does somewhat reduce the number of available Russian bombers and therefore the potential salvo sizes that could be launched against NATO forces. However, they also showed off a key vulnerability of the RAF and most other European air forces – attacks using small FPV or autonomous UAS smuggled close to airbases by agents and then used to destroy multiple essentially irreplaceable aircraft in surprise attacks. 

Russian and Iranian production of Shahed 136/Geran-2 type one-way attack UAVs is also now above 1,500 per month, meaning that in the aftermath of a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia could very rapidly build up a huge stockpile that would pose a major risk for European and even potentially UK airbases. 

A key element for addressing this challenge is to contextualise the Russian targeting problem in any attack on NATO forces. Firstly, Russian forces could not fire all their missiles or Shahed/Geran UAVs in a single salvo. They will be constrained by how many bombers the Russian Aerospace Forces can get airborne simultaneously, how many they wish to risk in conventional missions in which they might be intercepted, such as up towards the Arctic as opposed to conserving them as a nuclear strike force of last resort, and how many Shahed/Geran UAVs they can set up and launch from suitable areas with the units available. They will also have to weigh the risk of losing scarce assets such as bombers and submarines, and suffering retaliatory strikes on bases once they have been used, against the anticipated gain from strikes on a given target. Secondly, they cannot just attack one or two nations without leaving themselves exposed to uncontested mobilisation and retaliation from the others. The threat looks far more intimidating if viewed as a single nation looking at Russian striking power than as an alliance. The challenge, therefore, should be to minimise likely damage from Russian salvos, rather than achieving comprehensive defence against its entire arsenal concentrated hypothetically on one country. 

One clear part of the answer is hardened aircraft shelter (HAS) construction and renovation for passive defence, alongside practicing rapidly flushing air assets to temporary dispersed locations, when possible with advanced warning of incoming attacks. HAS sites can increase aircraft survivability significantly (although not entirely) against unitary cruise and ballistic missile warheads that do not hit perfectly on target. Crucially, they also render inactive aircraft all but invulnerable to one-way attack UAVs, small FPV type UAS attacks, and missiles with submunition warheads, since they cannot carry sufficient explosive to breach a closed HAS. Laying additional taxiways and investing in rapid runway crater repair sets would also make eminent sense,  reducing the amount of time a force can be trapped on the ground between salvos. In addition, even small batteries of medium range air defence systems such as NASAMS, Sky Sabre or IRIS-T SLS/SLM can greatly thin out an incoming salvo of cruise missiles or even one-way attack UAVs as a last resort. Ultimately, investing in radar-laid anti-aircraft cannons such as German turreted 35mm systems for key bases may also make sense to provide additional resilience, especially against the latter threat at a more affordable cost per engagement. 

Counter-UAS capabilities for small UAS are undoubtedly also part of the solution, but it is important to remember that force protection units like the RAF Regiment lack the jurisdiction, personnel mass and tools to efficiently combat what is essentially a stand-off covert infiltration threat in the homeland. The first line of defence against attacks by Russian special services with massed small UAS from civilian trucks and the like must ultimately be provided by national intelligence services and police, in coordination with military force protection teams at bases themselves. 

The air-to-air fight

The final challenge posed by Russia to airpower in Europe is from Russian fighter aircraft. It is certainly true that the Russian fighter force has increased in capability significantly during the course of the war against Ukraine. Improved air-to-air tactics, large scale adoption and use of the AA-13 (R-37M) Axehead long range air-to-air missile, and increasingly sophisticated coordination between fighters and the GBAD component of the IADS have been coupled with a massive injection of high-end combat experience into the whole aircrew cadre. The Su-57 is also available in slowly increasing numbers, and will also field the technically impressive AA-12C (R-77M) medium-long range active radar missile alongside its AESA radar and relatively low-observable signature. However, despite these improvements, if the UK and its European NATO allies can solve the SEAD/DEAD and airbase vulnerability challenges, then the air-to-air fight would still be very one sided between NATO and Russian fighters, even in the absence of large scale US combat support. 

A crisis response is needed

Rapidly solving these challenges for airpower in Europe will require major investment, forcing changes in the defence industrial base and normal military procurement and planning processes. Procuring and producing the required weapons quickly will not only require money but also the fleshing out of the supply chain in areas such as explosive and propellant factories. There will be major financial and personnel opportunity costs for other military tasks. However, these pale in comparison to the directly foreseeable costs should deterrence on NATO’s borders fail. 

“The tools and technologies to solve the challenges all exist, but getting them into service at scale must be treated as a crisis-response task by governments, defence ministries and air forces alike.”

Failing to solve the SEAD/DEAD challenge, and bolster airbase resilience will mean air superiority is impossible against Russian forces, which in turn poses a grave risk that the UK and other European powers cannot deter or rapidly defeat wider Russian military aggression in the coming years. The tools and technologies to solve the challenges all exist, but getting them into service at scale must be treated as a crisis-response task by governments, defence ministries and air forces alike. 

By Professor Justin Bronk, published on September 22, 2025. The lead image is AI-generated and is meant to be a representation of Russia’s air defence. 

Author: Professor Justin Bronk, the Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology in the Military Sciences team at RUSI, and the Editor of the RUSI Defence Systems online journal. His particular areas of expertise include the modern combat air environment, Russian and Chinese ground-based air defences and fast jet capabilities amongst many others.