The Sky’s a Scam: How Ukraine Made Russian Air Power Useless

5 min readApr 14, 2025

Let’s cut the crap. For a hundred years, the world’s militaries have been obsessed with “air superiority.” Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Air superiority. Like you get to fly around, drop bombs, and feel important. Big planes, bigger egos. Jet fuel, medals, Top Gun posters. That’s the dream, baby.

But guess what? Ukraine just flipped that whole dream upside down, lit it on fire, and sent it crashing down in pieces. You don’t need to own the sky. You just need to make it so goddamn scary that no one else wants to fly in it.

That’s right. Ukraine didn’t build a massive air force, didn’t roll out shiny new fighter jets, didn’t even try to “dominate” anything. They just made sure the Russians couldn’t either. And that’s all it took to screw up an entire century of military masturbation.

Air Superiority? More Like Air Denial, Baby

See, Russia came in thinking they were gonna rule the skies. Glide in with their shiny jets, bomb a few cities, roll out the propaganda, sip vodka at 30,000 feet. Problem is — Ukraine didn’t play along.

They rolled out Patriot missiles, NASAMS, IRIS-Ts, and a whole circus of homemade drones that cost less than a Moscow Uber. And suddenly? The sky wasn’t a playground anymore. It was a graveyard for anyone dumb enough to fly in it.

Instead of chasing air superiority, Ukraine said: “Hey, what if we just make it hell up there?” And it worked.

Jets Are for Dinosaurs

You know what doesn’t work in modern war? Giant, expensive aircraft that go down faster than a used car in a demolition derby.

These Russian planes? Su-34s, Su-35s? Beautiful machines — if you like burning money. They get taken out by a guy with a joystick and a $600 drone with a GoPro taped to the front.

This isn’t war in 1945. This is Walmart warfare, DIY death machines and backyard engineers outsmarting billion-dollar defense contracts. It’s tactical judo — you use the other guy’s size and arrogance against him.

And Russia? Oh, they’ve got plenty of both.

The New Air Strategy: No One Flies, No One Dies (Unless You’re Russian)

Ukraine doesn’t want to “control” the sky. That’s yesterday’s game. They want to slice the sky — altitude by altitude, moment by moment. Low-level FPV drones skimming the treetops. Medium-range loitering bombs. Long-range SAMs that hit aircraft like cosmic slapshots.

They turned the air into a war salad bar: pick your altitude, and die accordingly.

They don’t run air missions. They run no-fly zones with attitude. You want to fly? Sure — just make sure your funeral’s prepaid.

Forget the Heroic Pilot — The Future’s a Nerd with a Router

Remember when air war meant mustached pilots in flight suits doing barrel rolls and dropping witty one-liners? Yeah, that’s dead. Now it’s a guy in sweatpants flying a drone from a laptop in a shipping container.

The new heroes don’t fly jets. They fly code. They pilot death on a delay, through fiber optics and cheap plastic. And they livestream it. That’s right: death has a YouTube channel now.

This war is post-heroic. No medals. No parades. Just precision death, uploaded in HD.

Russian Air Power = A Guy Flexing at a Gym with No Weights

You ever see a guy at the gym grunting like he’s lifting 300 pounds, but the bar’s empty? That’s Russian air power. Lots of sound, lots of chest-thumping, but the moment Ukraine shoots down one of their big planes, they panic like a teenager who just crashed dad’s car.

Every time Russia sends something up, Ukraine reminds them: “Hey, you remember gravity? It still works.”

Ukraine’s Not Just Fighting the War — They’re Writing the Manual

Let’s get one thing straight: Ukraine isn’t just a battlefield. It’s a university of war. And the syllabus? New doctrine, every damn day.

They’re inventing stuff faster than think tanks can come up with acronyms.

Swarm denial? They’re doing it.
Vertical slicing of the battlespace? Already a chapter in their book.
Outsmarting billion-dollar jets with drones from AliExpress? That’s the whole damn degree.

The rest of the world’s still drawing maps. Ukraine’s rewriting the legend.

Conclusion: The Sky’s Not Yours Anymore. It’s Nobody’s.

That’s the punchline. Nobody owns the sky now. Ukraine made sure of that. The whole idea of air superiority? A fantasy. A scam. A relic of guys who still think war is a game of chess played by gentlemen in uniforms.

Ukraine? They’re flipping the board, setting it on fire, and building a new one out of scrap parts and WiFi routers.

You want the future of war? It’s dirty. It’s cheap. It’s livestreamed. And it doesn’t give a damn about your shiny planes.

So next time some general talks about “owning the skies,” remember: owning the sky doesn’t matter if nobody dares to fly in it.

If you’re enjoying the content on my blog and would like to dive deeper into exclusive insights, I invite you to check out my Patreon page. It’s a space where you can support my work and get access to behind-the-scenes articles, in-depth analyses, and more. Your support helps me keep creating high-quality content and allows me to explore even more exciting topics. Visit [patreon.com/ChristianBaghai](https://www.patreon.com/ChristianBaghai) and join the community today! Thank you for being a part of this journey!

Christian Baghai | Patreon

The Bullshit Social Contract: Welcome to El Salvador’s Reality Show Dictatorship | Patreon

Your Accent Isn’t the Problem — The Algorithm’s a Bigot | Patreon

Liberation Day My Ass: How You Got Played by a Tariff and a Flag | Patreon

Algeria Didn’t Humiliate France — France Did That All by Itself | Patreon

The Market Had a Nervous Breakdown, and All We Got Was a Cheap Rally | Patreon

Obey, Salute, and Shut the Hell Up: When the Military Becomes a PR Department | Patreon

Deals with Devils: Why Every “Agreement” with Putin’s Russia Is Bullsh*t | Patreon

🛸 No Sanctuary, Baby: Ukraine’s Drones Just Brought the War to Russia’s Front Porch — and Rear-Ended Its Military Doctrine | Patreon

America’s Stock Market Is Held Together by Chewing Gum and Prayer — And Someone’s Lighting a Match | Patreon

Royalist Propaganda: The Golden Turd of Exile Politics | Patreon

THE HARVEST: APRIL 2025 AND THE MACHINE THAT ATE YOUR RETIREMENT | Patreon