Aerial War in Ukraine
Miro Barič
When Losses Are Confirmed Retroactively by Courts...
Another year has begun. In this continuation of the series, we will look at events that took
place from January 1, 2025, to January 31, 2025. While nothing significant happened in the
air, the political scene was on the verge of an earthquake.
Aerial War in Ukraine
Russia continued its offensive in the Donbas,
making progress at the cost of heavy losses.
According to Estonian military intelligence, in
January 2025, the Russian army paid for every
square kilometer of captured Ukrainian terri-
tory with the lives of 100 soldiers. On the most
critical front near Pokrovsk, Russian forces
became exhausted, and their advance stalled.
Ukrainians even began launching localized
counterattacks.
A similar situation unfolded in Russia’s
Kursk region, where, despite Putin’s promises,
Russian forces struggled to expel Ukrainians
who had unexpectedly occupied part of Russi-
an territory last year. Ukraine is likely holding
this land as a bargaining chip for upcoming ne-
gotiations, which have gained momentum since
U.S. President Trump took office again in Janu-
ary. However, at the time of writing, it appears
that Trump leans more towards Putin, posing
a risk that Ukraine may be abandoned. This
serves as a wake-up call for Europe, which
still stands behind Kyiv.
The biggest challenge for the Ukrainian Ar-
med Forces appears to be a shortage of sol-
diers on the front lines. Poor command de-
cisions contributed to this, as new brigades
were formed with insufficient training and
low morale instead of reinforcing experienced
units. Another controversial decision was the
attempt to rotate frontline units by deploying
specialists—such as MiG-29 aircraft techni-
cians and mobile anti-aircraft teams, which
had been highly effective in defending against
Russian Shahed drones.
The aerial campaign saw little change. After
Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities continued
through Christmas, nightly air raids persisted,
mainly using Shahed drones, with occasional
missile strikes. Most attacks targeted civilian
energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Kremlin
cynically continued to claim it was not terro-
rizing civilians and was only striking military
targets.
Ukraine also intensified its drone campaign
against Russian strategic targets. Initially al-
ternating between airfields, ammunition de-
pots, and other facilities, Ukraine refocused
on Russian oil infrastructure—refineries and
fuel depots—during this period. As expected,
Moscow officially denied any damage, insisting
that the massive fires observed were merely
caused by "falling debris from downed drones."
Only One Loss
During the observed period, there was only
one confirmed aerial equipment loss on the Ru-
ssian side. On Wednesday, January 1, a Mi-28NM
helicopter was destroyed under unknown circu-
mstances in the Kamensky district of the Voro-
nezh region, which borders Ukraine’s Luhansk
region. The crew—Captain Danila Kuznetsov and
Lieutenant Alexander Korolev—perished. Some
A damaged Russian Mi-24VM helicopter with the registration RF-13029 and bort number "red 53" is being loaded onto a trailer. The photograph surfaced during the monito-
red period, but there are no known details about the incident.
UKRAINE
INFO Eduard24
March 2025