By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said this week it has received a new batch of modernized MiG-31BM fighter jets, warplanes that officials say “have high combat characteristics and are capable of successfully solving tasks in modern conditions.”
It’s not certain how many were delivered from the Sokol Aircraft factory in Nizhny Novgorod. Word of the delivery came just days after NATO announced that US-made F-16s were being transferred to Ukraine and should be flying in Ukrainian skies sometime this summer.
One military expert told EurAsian Times that the MiG-31BM could have been upgraded to carry the Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile. Russia has used the Kinzhal effectively in Ukraine, although Ukrainian forces claim they have used the Patriot air defense system to shoot it down.
The MiG-31 is hardly a new aircraft. It was developed during the Cold War to defend against the possibility if NATO bombers attacking through the Soviet Union’s Arctic and Central Asian regions. The plane is said to have the fastest cruising speed of any fighter – Mach 2.3, roughly 1,700 miles per hour.
Russia no longer makes the MiG-31, so the manufacturer takes existing planes and upgrades them.
The MiG-31BM’s Zaslon-M radar is said to be able to identify and track 24 targets at a time up to almost 250 miles away. The fighter is equipped with a variety of weapons, including the R-37M long-range air-to-air missile.
According to the British Royal United Services Institute, the MiG-31BM and the R-37M have proven “especially problematic” for Ukrainian attack aircraft and fighters: “the extremely high speed of the weapon, coupled with very long effective range and a seeker designed for engaging low-altitude targets, makes it particularly difficult to evade.”
Military Watch Magazine has called the R-37M a contender for the title of world’s most dangerous missile, due to its range (250 miles), speed (Mach 6 or 4,450 mph) and its 132-pound warhead.
Ukraine’s MiG-29s and Su-27s aren’t really a match for the MiG-31BM, especially when it comes to long-range weapons. That’s why many welcomed the news that Kyiv would soon be taking delivery of F-16s. The plane can fire the AIM-120 AMRAAM, an air-to-air missile with a range of almost 100 miles.
Still, retired Indian Air Force Air Marshal Anil Chopra, who has extensive experience with Russian-made fighters, wrote in EurAsian Times that unless the F-16s are upgraded with better radar and avionics, they would be no better than the MiG-29.
Meanwhile, despite its much larger air force, Russia has been unable to establish air superiority. A large part of that is because Ukraine has built an effective air-defense system, using weapons from the West such as the Patriot missile system. Plus, the Pentagon notes that Moscow has been using only a fraction of its estimated 773 combat aircraft.
That could be because all those planes aren’t operation, or that Russia is risk averse when it comes to sending fighters over heavily-defended areas.
