What? It's Thales who produce Russia's R77M1 guidance systems and some of its avionics, and they are worst than MICAs (let's not even talk about Meteors). Russian pilots get on average less than 80 hours/year of real flights, standard in France in 140, including regular wargames against US raptors and superhornets at both Fox3 and Fox2 distance (some old videos are available on the internet of rafale f2 vs F22 raptor, it is fun to watch)(also, i write engagement distance in full letter because french standard for their rafale is confusing).

And not talking about the difference in Fox3 missiles (because Russia cannot compete), even Fox2 it's not that close, with a time to lock for MICA IM at least twice as short as Russia equivalent on the same plane (and MICAs avionics are better, so harder to evade).

But enough talk about missiles and air to air engagement. What about electronic warfare capabilities? Oh yeah, dependant on Thales designs. Also, do you expect a lot from country whose plane passive IFF isn't working? Yeah, that happened on a Su34 (so, not that old of a plane).

The S400 would prevent too much entries in Russian airspace (although we learned last year than EM disruption was enough to counter it, you still have to find it. I think S400 are better than what a lot of people now expect from Russian modern weaponry). I doubt however they would have anything other than Su57 left after two days of war against EU. And since they already lost two (or is it three?) in six months in ukraine, they only have thirteen left (including prototypes).

Also i'm not convinced of Russian nightime optics, i know they didn't hire Thales for those, but i think they should have considering it took two weeks to spot nighttime Mariupol approvisionment raids.

I'm pretty sure aerial warfare is not