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'Russian bombers are burning en masse' β€” Ukraine's SBU drones hit 'more than 40' aircraft in mass attack, source claims (kyivindependent.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 50 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I was seeing from other online spaces that this would be about 30% of Russias strategic bomber fleet and it's accompanying aircraft like their AWACs that got hit.

If that's the case that's a staggeringly bad day for the Russian air force, which means it's a good fucking day.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    @Bonifratz @AnalogNotDigital I was interested in this - can you share where this figure came from / how calculated?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    They have roughly 120 strategic bombers in their air force. 40 of those is 33%.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    @AnalogNotDigital Ah I found BBC, Reuters and AP quoting the Ukranian SBU " SBU officially confirmed it had carried out the strikes, saying that "34% of [Russia's] strategic cruise missile carriers" were hit" - bbc.com/news/articles/c1ld7ppr… - and that " Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, as well as A-50 were destroyed" - Claims not yet independently verified. - It sounds like a massive hit but I have a feeling that we might see independent claims downgrading the figure a bit. The "strategic cruise missile carriers" is also a bit of qualifier. I would assume that there are independent estimates of what usable air power Russia has. I'm not seeing those chime in yet.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I think the "strategic cruise missile carriers" bit is just a bad translation, it's clear in ukranian he means "we blew up aircraft capable of launching cruise missiles" and then is discussing the specific aircraft destroyed as separate figures.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    For what I thought I knew, they only had 3 (some say they had only one but I doubt it) airworthy AWACS (the A50) so losing one makes it impossible to patrool & cover even the most important parts of russia.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Exactly. This is a massive strike that we fully won't know the repercussions of for a little bit. We'll just have to see how their optempo changes. It honestly could be even worse for them. They have 120 of those bombers, period. Meaning some of them might not even be air worthy at all and are just spare parts.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    I feel like the AWACs is a way bigger loss than all those obsolete bombers.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Those bombers have been wantonly dropping cruise missiles of to hit Ukraine. Both are significant.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, because powerful countries for better or worse did not decisively intercede to destroy them.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Oh cmon dude. There are actual reasons that the west escalated their aid over a time.

    It's not a reason I agree with, but their logic in doing so is also entirely justifiable.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    The west has escalated aid, but the powers that be in this situation in the US whoever they are I don't really care the specifics it is so tiringly repetitive the closer you look never wanted Ukraine to win decisively or else they would have made different choices.

    The example you may have heard of is the Biden administrations reluctance to provide Javelin antitank missiles... which didn't end up being a decisive delay and in my opinion was a major miscalculation from Biden.. but it pointed clear as day to a bipartisan deeper reluctance in the US military/political power apparatus to provide Ukraine the tools to decisively beat Russia directly.

    There has been ample examples of US air superiority assets and intelligence capability being used to indirectly help Ukraine assets perform tactical feats, but strategically there has been a very careful absence that I think is obvious to anyone who understands modern combined arms/mechanized war at a basic level.

    What I am talking about is artillery, most people think what you would need to stop a Russian ground invasion are tanks, antitank missiles or stealth jets so expensive they can't afford to fly but not only does that misunderstand modern warfare with fpv drones, flying bombs and all kinds of guided weaponry that can defeat everything but very heavy armor, it misunderstands the history of combined arms warfare up until this point in that the answer is always in the end Artillery.

    If the Pentagon wanted Ukraine to decisively beat Russia it would have provided them 155mm shells and armored self propelled artillery like it provides bombs for Israel committing genocide in Gaza. Even a meager targetted investment and acceleration of the Bohdana SPG program to produce a domestic artillery system in Ukraine that could fire 155mm shells would have made a stunning difference if it had gotten off the ground earlier in the war. The reasons are obvious, and they stare down at you like monoliths if you start to ask critical questions about why the Ukraine war has gone on so much longer than "everyone thought it would".

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