The downing of a sophisticated Russian early warning airplane over occupied Ukraine highlights a barely visible air war that may have downed as many as 1,000 aircraft over the last two years. For Russia, Sunday night’s shootdown of its airborne early warning and control system over the Sea of Azov is a blow comparable to the April 2022 sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva.

“Another black day for the Russian Aerospace Forces and Air Defense,” Russian military blogger Rybar lamented to his 1.2 million followers on Telegram. From the other side, a Ukrainian defense affairs journalist, Illia Ponomarenko, rejoiced on X: “The biggest air kill of the war so far.”

The downing of the Beriev A-50 was spectacular. The plane, known by the North Atlantic Treaty reporting name “Mainstay,” had been upgraded with digital avionics and a top-mounted radome that scanned 360 degrees, detecting aircraft for 250 miles, allowing it to coordinate and track 300 targets simultaneously. With only six of these flying command and control centers in existence in Russia, two are kept flying simultaneously at safe distances from the war zone.

On Sunday night, the lumbering plane apparently exploded in mid-flight, taking its highly trained crew of 15 to their deaths in the frigid Sea of Azov. Ten minutes later, a less sophisticated flying command center, an Ilyushin-22, was hit nearby. It made it to mainland Russia, landing with its tail perforated with shrapnel holes and, reportedly, two dead crew members aboard.

“Soldiers of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed the enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and the Il-22 enemy air control post,” Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, announced on Telegram “Thanks to the Air Force for the excellently planned and conducted operation in the Azov region.”

Ukraine’s southern military spokesperson, Natalia Humeniuk, told reporters in Kyiv: “We expect this strike [on the A-50] to be fairly painful and, at least, to delay powerful missile strikes.” A mystery remains as to how Ukraine managed to hit these planes, which were circling over the Azov, safely beyond the published 100-mile range of the US-supplied Patriot missiles.

There may be two answers. First, the Patriots may have a longer range — a military secret. This would help explain how Ukraine managed to shoot down five Sukhoi fighter bombers within three days in late December. Another theory is that Ukraine is taking advantage of the frozen steppe to quickly move a Patriot battery up to the edge of its front lines.

Highly mobile, a Patriot battery moves on trucks and trailers. It can be set up in one hour. This would be a game of high risk and high reward. Each Patriot missile costs $4 million, but the battery costs $1 billion. This high stakes battle focuses attention on an air war fought high above southeastern Ukraine.

On the conservative side, the Dutch open-source military intelligence website tallies 349 planes shot down or severely damaged, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in earnest in February 2022. Limiting its tally to ‘visually confirmed’ kills, Oryx says Ukraine has lost 37 helicopters and 79 fighter bombers — either MiGs or Sukhois.

Ukraine started the war with 98 Migs and Sukhois. This means that Ukraine has lost 81% of its starting force. Russia has lost more, Oryx says. Its tally shows 86 fighter bombers lost — 1 MiG and 85 Sukhois. However, when the war started, Russia had 388 Migs and 1,265 Sukhois. Oryx says that Russia has lost 134 helicopters. Russia apparently started the war with 1,520 working helicopters.

By contrast, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, which makes public only its tally of enemy losses, posts on X that Russia has lost 653 planes — 329 fighter bombers and 324 helicopters. This would be almost the same number of helicopters lost during the Soviet Union’s decade in Afghanistan, and almost three times the number of fighter bombers.

In the middle, Wikipedia draws on news accounts. The online encyclopedia comes up with a tally of 721 aircraft lost since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022. This list comes up with 334 from Ukraine, 287 from Russia and eight from other countries.

When air war histories are written, the anomaly of the first two years of the David and Goliath encounter between two Soviet-era air forces is that Russia does not control Ukraine’s skies. In the first days of its attack, Russia was able to destroy much of Ukraine’s relatively small air force on the ground. Since then, Ukraine’s “FrankenSAM” air defenses — cobbled together with different surface-to-air missiles — have largely kept Russian air power at bay.

Some help is on the horizon. Japan has promised to join America and Germany in sending more Patriot missiles. Last year, Poland and Slovakia donated several dozen MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. Starting this summer, a total of 40 F-16 fighters are to come from Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium. These NATO countries are giving up their US-made war jets because they are taking delivery of the new generation F-35 Lightning II jets.

However, the price for protecting Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure is an arsenal of surface to air missiles. As seen Sunday night, Russia’s air force is constantly testing the limits. On the unmanned side, Russia is churning out hundreds of drones a month. Iran is selling kamikaze drones and is building a drone factory near the Urals.

North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, arrived at Moscow on Sunday for three days of talks. Arms sales will be a topic. In December, Ukraine detected two attacks by short-range North Korean ballistic missiles fired from Russia.

At Brussels, European Union officials are devising a work around to allow approval of $55 billion in aid to Ukraine, overriding objections by Hungary. At Washington, Republican and Democratic congressional leaders return from the three-day weekend, trying to fashion a compromise bill that would tighten immigration controls and give $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.

“The stakes here are quite high,” Senator McConnell said last week. “We have an opportunity to make the most comprehensive headway on border security in a generation.”

Senator Murphy, who led negotiations for the Democrats, said: “It’s frustrating, but we’ll continue trying to get this nailed down.” According to the AP, he added: “We’ve run out of time. Ukraine is at a real moment of peril. This is definitely an increasingly dangerous moment.”