The Ukrainian FEW: How Zelensky's plucky surface-to-air missile crews and pilots flying inferior jets are preventing Putin gaining vital air superiority over their homeland... in echoes of the Battle of Britain

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They are overwhelmingly outnumbered and are facing far superior weapons and machinery, but Ukraine's fighter pilots and ground defence teams are continuing to hold their own against Russia. 

According to the Ministry of Defence's latest intelligence update, Ukraine's air defence network is enjoying 'considerable success' against Russia' modern combat planes. 

It means that they have been able to prevent Vladimir Putin's forces from achieving 'any degree of control of the air' during its invasion, the MoD said in its summary. 

Ukrainian forces have shot down at least nine Russian planes in just a 24-hour period this week and analysts have said the country cannot sustain its air losses for more than a fortnight. 

Western officials are said to have been surprised by Russia's inability to win the battle of the skies, because it has a huge advantage. 

Its fleet of more than 1,300 aircraft and 400 helicopters have been unable to knock out the Ukrainian air force and its ground-to-air missile systems. 

Whilst Ukraine had just 146 attack aircraft - made up mostly of Soviet era MiG-29 fighter jets  - at the start of the conflict, Russia had 1,328, nearly ten times as many.

Similarly, the Ukrainian air force is made up only 35,000 people, compared to Russia's 165,000. 

The contrasting strengths evoke memories of how RAF pilots who were dubbed 'The Few' in the Second World War defended Britain against Nazi Germany. 

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky harked back to the words of Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill yesterday when he addressed Parliament, telling MPs that his forces would fight against Russia on land, sea and in the air.  

Despite Ukraine's disadvantage, a U.S. official said last week that the country still had a 'significant majority' of its aircraft available. 

On the ground, Ukraine is using Soviet-era surface-to-air missile systems that are again inferior to the air defences that Russia is using to defend its invading forces. 

However, crews manning the systems have still been able to shoot down Russian aircraft and helicopters. At the weekend Ukraine's armed forces said it had shot down 44 Russian planes and 44 helicopters since the invasion began. 

They are overwhelmingly outnumbered and are facing far superior weapons and machinery, but Ukraine's fighter pilots and ground defence teams are continuing to hold their own against Russia. Above: The remains of a Russian fighter jet that Ukrainian officials said was shot down last week

The heroic efforts of Ukrainian pilots and ground defence teams evokes memories of how RAF pilots (pictured) who were dubbed 'The Few' in the Second World War defended Britain against Nazi Germany

The Ukrainian air force is mostly using the MiG-29 fighter jet, which first entered service in the Soviet Union in 1982. 

At the start of Russia's invasion, it had around 50 MiG-29s, along with 30 Sukhoi Su-27 fighters and around a dozen of both Su-24 bombers and Su-25 ground attack planes. 

By contrast, Russia has hundreds more fighter jets available, made up largely of Su-30, Su-25, Su-34 and Su-35s, all of which are superior in performance and weaponry to the MiG-29.

But at the weekend, an official in the U.S. department of defence said the airspace above Ukraine remained contested, with Ukrainian pilots still in the air more than two weeks after Russia's invasion began.  

'In the airspace, we continue to observe that the airspace over Ukraine is contested,' the official said in statement on Sunday. 

'Ukrainian air and missile defenses remain effective and in use. The Ukrainian military continues to fly aircraft and to employ air defense assets.'

They added: 'Both sides have taken losses to both aircraft and missile defense inventories,' the official said. 'We are not going to speak to numbers. We assess that both sides still possess a majority of their air defense systems and capabilities.'

Ukrainian fighter pilot Colonel Oleksandr 'Grey Wolf' Oksanchenko is seen above. He was killed at the start of this month after leaving his role as an aerobatics pilot to defend his country's skies against Russia 

This handout picture released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on March 5, 2022, shows what is said the wreckage of a Russian military aircraft on the outskirts of the city of Chernihiv

Videos have also emerged showing Ukraine's ground defence missiles in action. One filmed last week shows the moment a Russian attack helicopter is blasted out of the sky around 25 miles outside of Kyiv. 

Ukrainian troops fired a rocket skyward to target the state-of-the-art Mi-24 Hind aircraft. 

A video filmed in Kharkiv, Ukraine's besieged second city, appeared to show the moment a Russian Su-25 fighter was shown down by two surface-to-air (SAM) missiles fired by Kharkiv's air defence forces.   

Other footage, shared on social media last week, showed clips of an aircraft dropping rapidly from the air as cheers form Ukrainians could be heard in the background.   

More footage then showed the captured Russian pilot, bloodied from his escape, being questioned by Ukrainian forces as they demanded to know his name and orders.

There were also unsubstantiated rumours circulating on social media that a Ukrainian fighter pilot dubbed the 'Ghost of Kyiv' had downed several Russian jets. 

The pilot, who was allegedly flying a MiG-29 jet, was seen in an image shared online, while footage allegedly showed jets soaring through the skies and shooting down six Russian planes. 

The Ukrainian government has openly promoted the claims that the pilot exists, in the apparent hope of rallying the besieged nation in its battle against Russia.    

Posting a 38 second video late last month, the government's official Twitter account said: 'People call him the Ghost of Kyiv. 

'And rightly so – this UAF ace dominates the skies over our capital and country, and has already become a nightmare for invading Russian aircrafts.' 

Ukraine's courageous defence against the odds prompted the country's president to evoke Britain's World War Two Prime Minister Winston Churchill's words when he addressed the British Parliament yesterday.   

Mr Zelensky was given a standing ovation by MPs both before and after his speech in which he compared Ukraine's fight against Russia to Britain's Second World War struggle against Nazi Germany.

A video filmed in Kharkiv, Ukraine's besieged second city, appeared to show the moment a Russian Su-25 fighter was shown down by two surface-to-air (SAM) missiles fired by Kharkiv's air defence forces

Footage from a CCTV camera installed in a building in Kharkiv shows the sky light up as the Russian plane is hit by two SAMs in quick succession. The Su-25 aircraft is typically used to provide close air support to ground forces, but can also be used for delivering bomb and missile strikes

The burning wreckage of a Russian Su-30 which crashed into a field near Chernihiv in Ukraine on Saturday after being shot down. Ukraine's Armed Forces Air Command reported early this morning that one Su-25 fighter, two Su-34 fighter-bombers, two Su-30 SM planes, and three helicopters were shot down yesterday alone

A Ukrainian serviceman walks past the vertical tail fin of a Russian Su-34 bomber lying in a damaged building in Kharkiv, Ukraine

Mr Zelensky said: 'We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight to the end, at sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost.

'We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.'

He said Ukraine was fighting a 'war that we didn't start and we didn't want' as he told MPs 'we do not want to lose what we have, what is ours'.

Comparing Ukraine to the UK standing alone more than 80 years ago, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainians are fighting to save their country 'just the same way as you once didn't want to lose your country when Nazis started to fight your country and you had to fight for Britain'.

Winston Churchill famously said of Britain's RAF pilots that 'never was so much owed by so many to so few'

British heroes in Spitfires and Hurricanes defeated the German Messerschmidt planes (pictured) at the Battle of Britain, helped enormously by the tactical failings of Herman Goering  

In the Second World War, Britain was faced with the threat of invasion by Adolf Hitler's forces. The code name for the invasion plan was Operation Sea Lion.   

It was planned for September 1940, when Hitler hoped to land 100,000 troops at five points on the English coast between Ramsgate, Kent, and Selsey Bill, West Sussex.

He prefaced the order by stating: 'As England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, still shows no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare, and if necessary to carry out, a landing operation against her.'

The first wave of the 'exceptionally bold and daring attack' would also feature 650 tanks and 4,500 horses.

He would then deploy another 500,000 soldiers to fight inland once the Nazis had a foothold. 

The invasion was entirely dependent on the Luftwaffe gaining air superiority over the British by the middle of September. 

Crucially, the RAF won the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940, scuppering Operation Sea Lion.

Modern historians have since suggested that plans for Sea Lion were fatally flawed and would have failed spectacularly, possibly hastening the end of the war.

The Nazis were planning to use river barges which would be towed over the Channel in tugboats, despite these being unseaworthy.

Furthermore, the crossing would have taken hours, during which time the powerful Royal Navy could have destroyed the armada.

In the Second World War, Britain was faced with the threat of invasion by Adolf Hitler's forces. The code name for the invasion plan was Operation Sea Lion Pictured: German plans to invade Britain, if naval and air superiority was achieved