Casemate Publishing is distributing Helion & Company’s 6^th installment of their series “War in Ukraine”. This series is part of their “Europe at War” collection. “War in Ukraine” covers all aspects of the current conflict in Ukraine, like air warfare, drone warfare, armored vehicles or specific battles. This book is focused on the opening moves of air warfare in Mar-April of 2022.

Taking into consideration that the conflict is still underway, the authors disclose that several of their sources are video captures, online publications and other social media sources. It should be taken into consideration that some of those sources could be impacted by the “fog of war”, either by accident or intentionally (i.e., misinformation campaigns, counter-intelligence campaigns, etc.). The authors have made a deliberate effort to “lift” the fog-of-war through evaluation of strategical and tactical thinking plus consideration on the technical details of the weaponry utilized.

The book is divided into the following chapters:

• Think Russian
• Guerrilla Air Force
• Coup Attempt
• From a Coup to a War
• The Flying Fire Brigade
• Battle of Kharkiv
• The Siege of Mariupol
• Southern Ukraine

The first two chapters are focused on military doctrine of each air force, plus strength, training and readiness. The Russian Airforce has strength in numbers but it is highly centralized in its command and designed to provide needs for their army and therefore unable to launch a strategic campaign on its own (after all, they failed to secure airspace at the beginning of the war and/or destroy all the strategic infrastructure of Ukraine). The Ukrainian Airforce, on the other hand, is smaller and after independence from the Soviet Union it was forced to develop its own aerospace industry to support and maintain its air force, while at times, its pilots were flying barely the minimum hours/year required to maintain their ratings and hence at risk of being under-trained for the needs of the conflict.

The next six chapters focus on different battles of the opening moves of the conflict, like the failed helicopter assault in Kyiv in February of ’22, the battle of Kharkiv, the Siege of Mariupol or the conquest of Southern Ukraine.

In those chapters the authors describe the different aerial engagements, which were mostly “army support” missions for the Russian Air Force and “interdiction” missions for the Ukrainian Air Force, except for Mariupol, when the Ukrainian Air Force created a re-supply air-bridge with their helicopters.

Throughout the whole book there are plenty of pictures, many of them prior to the conflict, and those during the actual conflict tend to be video stills and of lower resolution but of high value as they show details on the camouflage and tactical markings during actual combat operations.

In addition to the color pictures there are 33 color profiles, several maps indicating the tactical situation or even the flight path of different aircraft (when applicable) and many tables that in some cases indicate the bort-number and camouflage style of multiple aircraft.

This book is quite an interesting read both from the historical and strategic point of view as well as from the modeler's point of view due to several images taken during combat missions.

Recommended.

I would like to thank Casemate Publishing, Helion and Co and IPMS/USA for the review sample.