Ukraine has shot down 70 Russian jets

An estimated 60 Ukrainian aircraft have been downed since Russia's invasion began a year ago, but Moscow has lost more than 70, the top U.S. Air Force commander in Europe says.

Hi, I'm Nicole with updates on the Ukraine-Russia war. 

Gen. James Hecker, speaking at the Air and Space Forces Association's Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, said Russia’s larger air force failed to establish air superiority in the early days of the war but that a virtual stalemate now exists in the skies, Air and Space Forces Magazine reports.

Russian air defenses are located in Russia, Belarus and parts of occupied Ukraine, he said. That will make it difficult for Ukraine to use airpower in the counteroffensive the Ukrainians are planning for the spring and summer. Hecker said the U.S. is providing AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles, jerry-rigged to work with the country’s Soviet-designed fighters.

“Obviously, they’re not as integrated with the airplane as it would be if they’re on the U.S. aircraft, so they do have limitations,” Hecker said. “But they’re doing a pretty good job.”

More on the Ukraine-Russia war:

• Fewer than 4,000 civilians remain in the embattled city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Tuesday. The industrial city was home to more than 70,000 before the war.
• A Moscow court sentenced a student activist to 8 1/2 years in prison for social media posts criticizing Russia's war in Ukraine as the Kremlin stepped up its crackdown on dissent fueled by the invasion.
• The U.S. has begun supplying Ukraine’ with JDAM precision-guided bombs that have extended the Ukrainians’ strike capability, officials said. 

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