Yeah, I was under the impression pre-Ukraine that Russia was an "nth generation" fighter supplier, and therefore should have air superiority almost by default.

Yeah, I was under the impression pre-Ukraine that Russia was an "nth generation" fighter supplier, and therefore should have air superiority almost by default. I was corrected that nobody seems to buy Russia's offerings, and those that were made are basically for show and not in mass production. I also realized that air superiority, as in expensive jets attacking from distance and altitude, might not matter if the enemy has cheap effective drones. If the drone loss rate and replacement is cheaper than the flight hours cost of the ultraexpensive fighter jet, and if they can throw 100 drones at a battlefield and the best you can do is shoot down 10 of them with your ultraexpensive fighter jets... uhoh. Even if you "own" the skies, you don't have ground-air superiority. Yes you can bomb static targets with impunity, but your ground forces are essentially unsupported, and if the enemy is infantry with portable missiles and drones with missiles... uhoh.