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Al Jazeera
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Europe considers the perils of flying fighters in Ukraine's airspace
Ukraine's European allies are considering the possibility of using their air forces to defend the country's western skies from drone and missile attacks without the help of the United States, sources familiar with the talks tell Al Jazeera. The plan, known as Skyshield, could put NATO planes and pilots into Ukrainian airspace for the first time, sending a powerful political message to Russia that Europe is committed to Ukraine's defence. Skyshield is more likely to come into effect as part of any ceasefire, especially if European ground forces are committed. But it was designed by Ukrainian and British aviation experts to work under combat conditions as well. 'It's being taken very seriously into consideration by the UK, France,' said Victoria Vdovychenko, an expert on hybrid warfare at Cambridge University's Centre for Geopolitics, who has sat at some of the meetings. 'German colleagues and Italian colleagues also do know about that, as well as the Scandinavian colleagues,' she said. When it comes to implementing Skyshield in wartime conditions, she admits, 'some of the partners are still fluctuating in their decision making'.Skyshield was published in February and is the brainchild of Price of Freedom, a Ukrainian think tank founded by Lesya Orobets. She came up with the idea during an air defence crisis last spring, when Republican lawmakers in the US delayed the passage of a $60bn bill to send more aid to Ukraine. During a phone call with the head of Ukraine's air force, Orobets was told, 'We are in the middle of a missile crisis. We don't have enough [interceptors] to shoot down the missiles.' Skyshield calls for the deployment of 120 European aircraft to protect Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and export corridors along the Danube River and the Black Sea, freeing up the Ukrainian Air Force to focus on the first line of defence in the contested east of the country. 'There would be a piece of land of 200 kilometres [125 miles] between them at least,' said Orobets. European jets would be based in neighbouring Poland and Romania, and fly mostly west of the Dnipro, protecting Kyiv on both sides of the river in the north of the country. Western commanders are wary of costs, casualties and military implications. Hourly flight costs, which include training, parts and maintenance, range from $28,000 for an F-16 to about $45,000 for a fourth-generation Rafale jet, Colonel Konstantinos Zikidis of the Hellenic Air Force told Al Jazeera. 'We'd have to pay for people to be there, several shifts a day in all specialities … it will be exhausting,' he said, referring to aircraft technicians and pilots. 'On the other hand, the proposal downplays the effectiveness of air defence systems, which are very effective against cruise missiles and have a far lower hourly operating cost than aircraft,' Zikidis said. 'It's also not really the job of aircraft to hunt down cruise missiles. They can do it if they are given coordinates by air command. They can't go out on flight patrol and spot them by chance. So you need a very thick radar array to cover a given area, especially at low altitude.' European NATO members do not operate AWACS airborne radar, which would be the ideal tool for the job according to Zikidis, but Ukrainian pilots have already downed Russian cruise missiles using air-to-air missiles, suggesting the ground-based radar assets are there. Europe has provided Ukraine with Patriot and Samp-T long-range air defence systems and Iris-T medium-range systems, but these are enough only to protect larger urban centres, said Vdovychenko. Russia is also stepping up its attacks. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on May 4 that Russia had launched almost 1,200 long-range kamikaze drones and 10 missiles in just a week. These types of weapons are routinely directed at civilian and industrial infrastructure, not the front lines, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasing production. Last year, Russia's factory at Alabuga produced 6,000 Shahed/Geran long-range drones, said Ukraine's head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, last month. He said Putin set production at 8,000-10,000 drones this year. The effects are visible. High-profile attacks on Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv and Kyiv have killed dozens of people this year. The second problem European air forces would face is that of casualties. 'If one European plane falls and a pilot is killed, it will be very difficult for a European government to explain it,' said Zikidis. 'For a Greek pilot to go and get killed in Ukraine could bring the government down,' he added. 'I don't think that there is a political will [for that], and that is what stops this partially,' said Vdovychenko. But Orobets put this risk in a wider context. 'We're talking about catching cruise missiles and putting down the offensive drones, which is quite an easy target for trained pilots,' she told Al Jazeera. 'So we do consider Skyshield to be less risky [than enforcing a no-fly zone] or any participation of the European troops closer to the front line.' Thirdly, there are the military implications. Skyshield is partly about freeing up the Ukrainian Air Force to strike deeper inside Russia, deploying the estimated 85 F-16s it is being given. That is because Russia has this year intensified its use of controlled air bombs (CABs), which are directed against front lines, reportedly dropping 5,000 in April versus 4,800 in March, 3,370 in February and 1,830 in January. Ukraine would target the airfields from which Russian jets take off to drop the CABs. It would also move missile launch systems closer to the front lines, increasing their reach inside Russia. CABs are Russia's most effective weapon at the front, and it has successfully leveraged its nuclear arsenal to intimidate NATO into allowing them to be flown in. The Biden administration had refused to allow Ukraine to deploy Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMSs), which have a range of 300km (190 miles), because Russia considered their use dependent on US intelligence, in its view, making the US a cobelligerent in the war. It has expressed exactly the same view of Germany sending its 500km (310-mile) range Taurus missile to Ukraine. In the same vein, Russia has threatened to act against any European force deployment to Ukraine. Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu last month told a summit of the foreign ministers of the BRICS group of states in Rio de Janeiro that 'military units of Western states on Ukrainian territory … will be considered as legitimate targets'. These threats have been effective. The Biden administration was against the idea of allowing the Polish and Romanian air forces to shoot down drones and missiles in Ukrainian airspace that were headed into Polish and Romanian airspace, Orobets said. The Biden administration 'thought that if any American pilot on any American jet or any Western jet would enter the Ukrainian airspace, then America or another country would become cobelligerent', she said. The same applied to the notion of Europeans entering Ukraine's airspace. 'They were scared that Russians would then escalate to the level of a conflict they could not sustain. So that was the only reason. There was no reason like, 'Oh, we cannot do that',' she said.
Al Jazeera
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Ukrainians are looking past NATO to a European security architecture
Cambridge, United Kingdom – The fate of Ukraine and the future of European security hangs in the balance as United States and Russian diplomats prepared to discuss an accelerated peace plan this week. The uncertainty and dreadful possibilities of this historical moment, with Russia occupying a fifth of Ukrainian soil, dominated the atmosphere of Firewalling the Future, a conference on the future of Ukraine held at Cambridge University on Monday. Organised by programme leader Victoria Vdovychenko and professor of Ukrainian studies Rory Finnin under the auspices of the Centre for Geopolitics, it brought together Ukrainian, European and British diplomats, soldiers and academics. Dominant among the Ukrainians and Eastern Europeans present was the sentiment that with Trump's re-election, the international order is irrecoverably lost and needs to be rebuilt. Some spoke openly of a post-NATO reality in which Europe must form new structures and alliances to fend for itself. 'No one knows if NATO will be present if things actually happen,' said one Ukrainian parliamentarian whose husband was fighting on the front lines. 'We have to realise as a Europe that outsourced its protection, that … Ukraine suddenly became a valuable security partner. We're willing to fight and give you a lot of valuable lessons.' 'Is the United States still seen as a reliable partner?' asked another parliamentarian from Kyiv. In a European crisis, she said, 'Who will come?' 'If the US continues to say what Vance said at Munich, they are facing a disaster,' said a Ukrainian former cabinet member. 'Europe is waking from a warm bath,' he concluded. All the speakers addressed the conference under Chatham House rules of anonymity. 'You gotta pay' In the past year, Europe's security prospects have changed beyond recognition. US President Donald Trump said NATO protection was no longer contractual but conditional. 'One of the presidents of a big [NATO] country stood up, said, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?' he told students at Coastal Carolina University in February last year. 'No, I will not protect you, in fact I would encourage [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay,' he said to cheers. This month, protection for Ukraine also became conditional, as Trump demanded preferential access to Ukraine's mineral wealth to pay for the aid the US has provided. Days later, in his first remarks on European soil, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said 'returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,' and that 'the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.' On Friday, US Vice President J D Vance attempted to reassure European leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference about the US commitment to their security, but Ukrainians at Cambridge felt European security had become unmoored. 'If the people making those speeches were women, they would have been called all sorts of bad names,' said the parliamentarian. 'But with men speaking all that nonsense, we are analysing it for strategic value.' No respect for 'weak countries' There was very little trust expressed in any agreement reached with Russia. 'I have been in Mariupol in 2022 and have experienced torture,' said a Ukrainian woman who has served on the front lines. 'Our enemies are ruthless and so I don't know with whom Trump would like to negotiate.' Ukrainians felt that once the objective of recapturing all the lands Russia has taken from them since 2014 was dropped, bad outcomes were more thinkable than good ones. 'The world we are living in does not respect weakness, weak countries… I'm not sure this world still respects international law,' said a second parliamentarian. Non-Ukrainians agreed. 'If Crimea remains in Russian hands, Russia will use it to dominate the Black Sea aggressively and to attack Ukraine again,' said a Romanian analyst. 'Any energy projects in the Black Sea would be harassed by Russians.' If any US-Russian framework were to be rejected by Ukraine, conferees agreed that Europe would be the only support left. 'Europe will almost certainly be stuck with the bill for Ukraine's reconstruction, and may also be stuck with the bill for prosecuting the war, ie $70-100bn a year,' said the Romanian analyst. There were no dissenters. Finland's model The position of China received attention at the conference. 'China's plan was to divide the American alliance and to cause the Americans to pull away from their networks,' said a Finnish China expert. 'They see that coming true.' China was less happy about Ukrainian resistance, said the expert. 'They are not happy to see the outcome of the war. They hoped for a short war that would damage Ukraine and discredit Zelenskyy. The prolonged resistance is troubling. China will now try to position itself as a peacemaker that never wanted any harm to come to Ukraine.' A third Ukrainian MP believed the post-Cold War world order was not working anyway because Europeans had stopped protecting themselves. 'In 1985, West Germany had 600,000 troops, France 200,000. The Soviet Union was deterred by Germany and France. The US only provided a nuclear umbrella. After the Cold War this changed, and it was a mistake,' he said. He called for 'new alliances to replace the dysfunctional ones'. Finland's Comprehensive Security Model showed a way forward for Europe, said the China expert, referring to the country's whole-of-society approach to national security. 'It's about creating a coherent threat perception across society, about having all reservists and military industry ready and on board, attending exercises, etc,' said the expert. 'This is giving people confidence. It works really well. Nobody in Finland is afraid of the Russians.'
