From the images, it appears to be a MiG-23 as you mentioned. Wilkipedia suggests the MiG-23 was a fighter / interceptor/ and attack bomber or strike aircraft.
" quote "
Operational history
Western sources, generally attribute a very limited number of confirmed air-to-air victories to the MiG-23 while reporting a higher number of MiG-23s downed mostly by Israeli Air Force in 1982, while Russian sources generally decrease the number of losses and increase the number of inflicted kills bringing the air-to-air kill to loss ratio to around parity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-23
Wilkipedia also suggests that a pilot with 5 or more " kills " is sufficient for attaining the status of " ace "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_ace
This is not meant to be a denigration of his flying abilities.
A better example of an ace might have been German pilot
Erich Hartmann who is the top ace of all time with 352 kills.
The
Soviet Air Forces has the first Allied pilots in terms of aerial victories,
Ivan Kozhedub credited with 66 victories and
Alexander Pokryshkin scored 65 victories. It also claimed the only female aces of the war:
Lydia Litvyak scored 12 victories and
Yekaterina Budanova achieved 11 Fighting on different sides, the French pilot
Pierre Le Gloan had the unusual distinction of shooting down four German, seven Italian and seven British aircraft, the latter while he was flying for
Vichy France in
Syria.
American Pilot Col. Robin Olds is yet another example. (July 14, 1922 – June 14, 2007) was an American
fighter pilot and general officer in the
U.S. Air Force. He was a "
triple ace", with a combined total of 16 victories in
World War II and the
Vietnam War He retired in 1973 as a
brigadier general.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Olds
There are many more examples of pilots who have attained " Ace " status