Ukraine’s drone attack on Russian warplanes was a serious blow to the Kremlin’s strategic arsenal
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drone-attack-bomber-d9078d989efcec36ec65ddfedfd2b3a5
Posted by GregWilson23
Ukraine’s drone attack on Russian warplanes was a serious blow to the Kremlin’s strategic arsenal
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drone-attack-bomber-d9078d989efcec36ec65ddfedfd2b3a5
Posted by GregWilson23
2 comments
>Ukraine said over 40 bombers, or about a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, were damaged or destroyed Sunday, although Moscow said only several planes were struck.
Outdated claims, they’ve now reduced it to “at least 13”:
>Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian government’s centre for counteracting disinformation, said at least 13 Russian aircraft were destroyed and others damaged.
Every Ukrainian blow is a serious/heavy blow; we should all be conditioned to that by now.
In reality though, the operation was one and a half years in the making with the support of a lot of western resources and space-based ISR. Not something you can repeat with any sort of consistency or ever.
The planes were just out in the open and directly visible from space; in compliance with the START treaty.
The claimed number of 40 quickly turned into 13, while Russia has about 200 of them if I recall correctly. So while yes it was a blow, its impact was more financial, reputational, and strategic – rather than something that’s actually going to help Ukraine deal with the ongoing conflict better.
The planes were not used in their nuclear capacity, and served as long-range missile launch platforms. Russia still has more of them, and they have other ways to do it as well; things will just be a bit more annoying for them.
What the attack did though is provide Russia with the justification to have its own round of escalation, which we should be seeing in the next couple of days. Everyone is expecting something big.
I’m also curious to see how the fact that one country directly attacked the nuclear triad of another is going to be reconciled internationally. Is everyone just going to pretend it didn’t happen, or will there be some kind of condemnation from people who don’t quite want to die in a nuclear winter just yet. Imagine if the UK got involved directly and had their nuclear carrying subs taken out by Russia, what kind of response would there be to that.
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