Russian Jet-Powered Drones Strike Ukrainian MiG-29 Fighters at Airbase During Takeoff: Third MiG Goes Down

Footage published by Russian state media has shown an Geran-4 single use attack drone striking a Ukrainian Air Force MiG-29 medium weight fighter as the aircraft prepared to take off at Voznesensk Airfield in southern Ukraine, destroying it. Ukrainian sources confirmed the aircraft was lost, with the Ukrainian Air Force Command also confirming that a second MiG-29 was destroyed during a combat mission on June 27 over the Poltava region. Russian sources reported that two MiG-29s were destroyed at the airfield during the strike, indicating that three MiG-29s may have been lost in total. The Geran-4 is one Russia’s latest attack drone types, and builds on the capabilities of the Geran-2, a licensed derivative of the Iranian Shahed 136. It is powered by a Chinese Telefly LX-WP-160 turbojet engine and is considerably more difficult to intercept than the Geran-2. 

Announcing the strike on the Ukrainian MiG-29, the Russian Defence Ministry noted that a second MiG-29 was also hit by a Geran-4 at the facility. It observed:  

"During reconnaissance and strike operations at the Voznesensk airfield in the Nikolayev region, preparations for the takeoff of two Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jets were detected. One of the combat aircraft loaded with air-launched munitions was positioned on the apron in front of a reinforced concrete shelter. The second aircraft located inside the shelter was being refuelled from a tanker truck. As a result of a strike on the airfield using two Geran-4 Seeker unmanned aerial vehicles, two MiG-29 aircraft loaded with munitions, a fuel tanker, a specialised APA-5D mobile airfield power unit, and the flight and engineering personnel who had arrived to prepare the aircraft for takeoff were destroyed.”

Having been inherited in large numbers following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the MiG-29 formed the backbone of the Ukrainian Air Force’s combat fleet before the start of full scale hostilities in February 2022. Unlike the much higher performing Su-27 and Su-24M fighters that were also in service, which have seen numbers in service diminish much more rapidly, the MiG-29 fleet has been replenished by donations from across Eastern Europe as former Warsaw Pact states retired their aircraft from service. The MiG-29 continues to perform a wide spectrum of combat missions over Ukraine, and while highly constrained in its air-to-air capabilities, the aircraft been modified to integrate NATO air-to-ground weaponry, most notably the AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile to target Russian air defence systems. The aircraft have at times suffered from intense losses, with 17 assessed to have been shot down during ten days of air battles from October 13-23. 

The lack of sufficient numbers of Soviet fighters in service or in storage among NATO member states after the donation of MiG-29s has led multiple members to invest in re-equipping the Ukrainian Air Force with NATO-standard fighter types. These include used F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighters donated by multiple European states, while in future newly built Swedish Gripen E/F and French Rafale fighters are planned to be supplied in considerable numbers. The F-16 and Mirage 2000 have been confirmed by multiple sources in the Ukrainian Air Force to be far from capable of engaging modern Russian fighters or air defences, which has led to them being operated far from the frontlines while avoiding hostile aircraft. Although modern F-16 Block 70/72 fighters equipped with advanced AIM-120D or AIM-260 missiles could potentially threaten Russian aircraft, the F-16s supplied are obsolete Cold War era variants that were from the outset seen to provide little improvement over the MiG-29 other than availability in greater numbers.