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THE UKRAINE WAR
AIR DIMENSION Why did the Romanian Air Force Supends flight activities with the MiG-21 LanceR? 
MiG-21 Original article: Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | ||
Why did the Romanian Air Force Supends flight activities with the MiG-21 LanceR?
Written by Tomaž Vargazon ... Practicing atheist
Updated April 22rd 2021
I find it interesting they suspended all operations with MiG-21 about five days before Pentagon announced it shipped fighters of an unspecified type to Ukraine. The only thing we know about them is the type is something Ukrainians were familiar with and could operate.
MiG-21 is outmatched by newer fighters, but it’s still a useful warbird if you accept the inherent limitations. It can pounce on helicopters, it can threaten incoming bombers, it can shoot down drones, it can shoot down transport aircraft, it can threaten Su-25 attack aircraft and do all of those reasonably well and on a budget. If the enemy knows you have a few MiG-21s they need to provide escort to whatever they’re sending and in the case of Ukraine, that means exposing their irreplacable Su-30s to Ukrainian air defense. It doesn’t matter that MiG-21 is no match for a Su-30, you still need to provide enough escort to ensure the Fishbed can’t get through and shoot down your Il-76 full of paratroopers. Again.
What is more, even if MiG-21s don’t make an apperance and the enemy simply could use them, you still need to provide the escort and expose your valuable fighters to surface to air missiles, as if they were coming in.
All this means MiG-21s would be useful to Ukraine. It’s not their preffered aircraft perhaps but good enough to give Russians pause. Romania suddenly suspended all flight operations with the aircraft and Ukraine is getting unspecified fighter aircraft a few days later. Official reason is the aircraft suddenly became unsafe to operate, so they’re making an urgent switch to F-16s I believe.
I do wonder where these MiG-21s will end up. Museums maybe?
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