Again, people trying to sell the F-35 in the oughties were saying that, but the experts I went to at the time were skeptical (and especially skeptical whether those extra capabilities matter for those countries which don't have a war against Russia, China, India, or Turkey in their threat model).
We now know that the Russian air force is much less capable than some believed it was.
The calculus is pretty simple. The F-35 costs about as much as a modern 4th generation aircraft these days but consistently slaughters those 4th generation aircraft in exercises due to its unique capabilities. This gives it a high force multiplier for the cost that works well no matter the quality of the adversary. I think everyone expected the F-35 to be much more expensive than advanced 4th generation aircraft, which would change the argument, but that turned out not to be the case.
That dozens of countries are buying fleets of F-35s also makes the practical logistics, operations, interoperability, and maintenance of the aircraft attractive. It is quickly becoming the new F-16 in terms of ubiquity in a modern Air Force.
> We now know that the Russian air force is much less capable than some believed it was.
I'm fairly certain Russia has not bothered to unleash their T-50 PAK's against Ukraine, so that remains to be seen doesn't it? And from all available literature those are at least on par with the F-22 if not slightly better.
Now the B-21 Raider (bomber, not a fighter) is probably without peer currently. That thing looks like a UFO.
After a year of losing the war and firing all kind of random munitions, if Russia had aircraft which it thought could survive against Ukrainian air defenses, I think it would use them. They certainly are not scared of losing people or equipment.
It seems like the Russian air force can't carry out large operations with sophisticated aircraft, whereas NATO air forces have lots of practice at that.
The Russian Air Force is carrying out large operations with sophisticated and intentional payloads on a weekly basis as widely reported by even western media. But they haven’t been flying far into Ukrainian airspace - likely due to all the old and very capable S-300s that are still operational (and that’s the old stuff, Russia is already fielding S-500s not to mention Buk 3 and Pantsir). Fear of losing people and equipment is precisely why they’re using stand-off ballistics from a safe distance instead of doing bombing raids.
There’s a reason Ukraine is asking for Patriots and other air defense systems (their air defense is degraded).
Everyone knows russia doesn't fear to lose people.
They haven't been flying to Ukraine because their pilots and "advanced" planes can be easily shot down with a regular Stinger system that costs like $40k.
There's already a difference between how the Russian armed forces values pilots, recently mobilized rookies, and then there's how the Wagner group values the recruited prisoners.
You’ve buying too much into the twitter/Reddit version of how things are going. Russian mothers love their sons just as much as American ones. Consider balancing your sources with actual military experts (and not ones on the boards of US defense contractors or journalist with liberal arts degrees).
> Russian mothers love their sons just as much as American ones.
It doesn't matter at all what they think, average citizen has absolutely no influence on how the government is run in Russia. Russia is a colonial power: security apparatus chiefs, billionaires and their servants in Moscow and St Petersburg form the elite, and together they plunder rest of the country.
Typical things that a person from a free country would think of don't work: elections are rigged, no point in participating. Civil society and non-governmental organizations (eg NRA, ACLU) barely exist and have no influence. Media is under full government control, no way to publish anything to wide auditorium. Courts are utterly corrupt. If you stage a protest, then the loudest ones will be dragged into a police van and beaten and raped on the spot, with screams heard by others outside on the street[1].They'll go home and do nothing, or they'll get the same treatment.
So many people in the west see Russia as "just another country", while it differs fundamentally: it never developed much beyond slavery. It never developed a free multipolar society where everyone's voice mattered through elections and all sorts of public organizations from book clubs to church groups. It never had freedom and its elite never had to listen to the people. There is simply no tradition of everyone participating in how the country is run.
Putin has sent a hundred thousand to death, and nobody will do anything if he sends a million more. He can mow down those mothers with a machine gun, and the default reaction from brainwashed population will be "I suppose they had it coming".
There are three problems that make the T-50 unsuitable for use over Ukraine:
1) They only exist in VERY limited numbers.
2) They're only stealthy from the front. If fired at from the rear or flank, they're vulnerable.
3) Russia has very limited access to good SEAD/DEAD type munitions (like the AGM-88 that USA is using)
What the T-50 is really designed for, I believe, is to defend friendly SAMs against enemy F35/F22. When such an aircraft is detected, T-50s can come in from deep within friendly airspaces and fly directly towards the incoming F35/F22 without being detected, and then hopefully shoot them down before being seen itself.
According to MoD Twitter (what a world we live in) they are using the su57 but very conservatively. Long-range attacks from inside Russian airspace only, so when they get shot down the wreckage will land in Russia. Hardly the choice of a confident Air Force.
I'm quite sure if Ukraine had access to F-35 or F-22 there would be stipulations that those would be used the same way. Countries try to be very careful about not giving opponents information about the latest high end gear.
This is nothing new, BTW. During WWII the UK forbade the new Gloster Meteor jet fighter from flying over Nazi occupied territory, for fear that the Germans might learn something valuable from a crashed jet. It was only in the last few months of the war that the Meteors were allowed to fly over enemy territory, as by then the outcome was abundantly clear and even if a jet was shot down the Germans wouldn't have time to do anything with the information.
We now know that the Russian air force is much less capable than some believed it was.