This shift transitioned away from the Soviet practice of placing some air defence units under ground forces control.

[2] After the accidental shooting down of Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 in October 2001, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Defence Forces, Colonel general Volodymyr Tkachov, first offered to resign and then was dismissed from his post.

[3] An anti-aircraft exercise being run from a training area in the Crimea had gone wrong, and a surface-to-air missile destroyed the plane.

In that capacity as a speciality of the force, Ukrainian Air Defense became involved in the long Russo-Ukrainian War from the 2010s and onward.

The first issue of the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance after the Soviet collapse, 1992–93, listed one Air Defence army, 270 combat aircraft, and seven regiments of Su-15s (80), MiG-23s (110) and MiG-25s (80).