Sky Shield: Europe's air power challenge over Ukraine
Sky Shield is an initiative aimed at securing the skies over western Ukraine through European NATO members' air forces. Implementing this plan will require deploying 120 combat aircraft. What forces do European NATO countries have at their disposal?
Sky Shield is not a new initiative - the idea of extending an aerial umbrella over western Ukraine was proposed by the United Kingdom back in 2022. Critics of the plan were concerned at the time about escalating the conflict with Russia.
Currently, along with peace talks and discussions about the possible introduction of international peacekeeping forces into Ukraine, the British initiative seems significantly closer to realisation than three years ago.
How many aircraft need to be sent over Ukraine?
This issue was recently highlighted by the Washington-based think tank CSIS (Centre for Strategic & International Studies), which calculated that - depending on the scope of aerial protection (points or area) - securing Ukraine will require from 48 to 160 combat aircraft, supported by force multipliers such as early warning aircraft (AWACS) and air refuellers.
CSIS also noted that deploying an appropriate number of aircraft - even if possible - will lead to faster wear and tear of the air forces of some NATO countries.
The concern is not about high combat losses but the fact that the age of combat aircraft in Europe varies, and for some, intensive use - which is expected in Air Policing missions - may mean accelerated depletion of their resources.
Europe modernises its air forces
Despite this, Europe - even without the United States - has an advantage over Russia in terms of air forces, especially when considering multirole and fighter aircraft capable of engaging enemy planes.
Furthermore, Western countries are currently undergoing a technical revolution - older machines like early variants of the F-16, F/A-18, and Panavia Tornado are being replaced with fifth-generation F-35 aircraft. This process is ongoing, and Europe's advantage in the most modern, valuable aircraft will increase quarter by quarter. The last Cold War-era F-4 models, though still serving in the air forces of Greece and Turkey despite their age, won't change this.
Moreover, aside from F-35 acquisitions, Europe independently produces and develops three types of aircraft classified as generation 4+. The French Rafale and the Eurofighter are continuously produced and developed, and their initial limitations (Rafale was designed with a focus on the strike role, Eurofighter for air superiority) are being mitigated with successive variants of these designs.
The Swedish Gripen, in the new JAS 39E variant now entering service, is also an aircraft with far greater capabilities than its earlier versions.
The state of Russia's military aviation
Russia's military aviation - although statistically still might seem powerful - faces different prospects. It is important to note that assessments showing Russian potential are often significantly flawed - they don't consider that Russia is a vast country with thousands of miles of borders to secure, ambitions to dominate the Arctic, and an unresolved territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands with one of the world's major military powers - Japan.
This means that Moscow - although it can direct most of its potential in one direction and does so in the case of Ukraine - must spread part of it across an extensive territory.
Moscow's aerial hope is the Su-57, which recently received its first foreign order, but these aircraft are produced very slowly - since the start of serial production in 2019, fewer than 30 have been made.
Meanwhile, the rest of the aircraft are in increasingly poor condition - production cannot keep up with losses. The modernisation potential of the MiG-29 or Su-27 and their developmental versions is almost exhausted, and ageing has thinned the ranks of high-quality aerospace industry personnel.
The impact of the ongoing war adds to these problems - even discounting combat losses, intensive use depletes the remaining aircraft's resources. As a result, assessing the actual state of Russian aviation is becoming more challenging - the number of multirole and fighter aircraft likely does not exceed about 1,100, and is probably much lower.
How many of these aircraft are combat-ready is unknown (for NATO, the operational readiness rate for most types of combat aircraft ranges from 40-70 per cent).
Sky Shield: objective capabilities versus political will
From this perspective, the numbers seem favourable for Europe; however, the statistics overlook a crucial issue. The air forces of the Old Continent, although numerous and modern despite some exceptions, are subject to limitations resulting from political issues.
Utilising their full potential would require consistent cooperation between states whose interests and assessments of the situation are not always fully aligned. Thus, the future of the Sky Shield initiative will be determined not only by the objective capabilities and limitations of projecting Western power beyond the borders of the EU and NATO but also by political will.
