The reason Russia doesn’t fly much over Ukraine because of its AA network, not because the Ukrainian Air Force is a particularly good opponent.
Can’t exactly fly combat sorties when the whole country is littered in NASAM and Patriot systems
Can’t exactly fly combat sorties when the whole country is littered in NASAM and Patriot systems
So, tellingly, the Russian air force failed to establish supremacy over Ukraine when Ukraine fielded only Soviet-era aircraft and anti-air (and in comparatively small numbers). Which strongly suggests that the Russian Air Force is not a particularly good opponent either.
But critically, the Ukrainian Air Force continues to exist as a fleet-in-being. So while it may not currently be capable of much force projection (I would argue that the Russian air force is also not capable of much force projection against a serious adversary), it does force its adversary to strategically deploy anti-air.
As Russian anti-air systems become depleted (which may be sooner or may be later, but due to the rapid destruction of S-400 systems of late, my money is on sooner), it is quite possible that the Ukrainian air force will play a larger role, especially given that training on F-16s commence in a handful of weeks.
The CNA and RUSI have both released excellent reports on the VKS challenges and performance.
SEAD/DEAD missions seem to be much harder than the US has made them look in the past (granted against much weaker GBADs than Ukraine or Russia have).
https://www.cna.org/reports/2023/04/Russian-Combat-Air-Stren...
[1] https://balloonstodrones.com/2022/10/19/looking-back-at-iraq...