The roar of a fighter jet engine forces Andriy into silence.
As he waits for the aircraft to take off, the Ukrainian fighter pilot's flight mask covers half his face, hiding his identity, but his squinting eyes still reveal a jovial smile. "Yes, that's ours," he says.
"Russian pilots fly more modern jets and they are capable of firing missiles at much further distances," he said. "For example, in order for us to deter missiles that are fired at 80 kilometers distance, we have to approach them at 40 kilometers. If they've already fired a missile at us, we somehow have to have it intercepted along the way."
As of Tuesday, Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have shot down more than 100 Russian jets and 123 helicopters, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. CNN cannot independently verify those numbers.
"We have been preparing for this scenario for eight years," said the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Lt. Col. Yuriy Ignat, adding that preparations began when Moscow occupied and then annexed Crimea in spring 2014. "These eight years we have been learning how to beat the enemy with the weapons that we have. And they understand it."
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