Apparently, the Russians moved a lot of their best bombers far from the front when they realized they were exposed to strikes, so Ukraine hit them with some James Bond, 4D chess operation they’d been planning for a year and a half.
Those bombers had been terrorizing Ukrainian cities, destroying defensive fortifications, and are a key part of the Russian nuclear threat.
Whatever weapons and money everyone is sending Ukraine, double it.
If a Republican crippled a historic enemies military without a single soldier dying and did so using a fraction of the US military budget they would put him on Mt. Rushmore, but since Biden did it they, and the entire media apparatus, called him a bumbling fool and senile.
Just like how Reagan gets credit for 'ending the Cold War' when a ton of the legwork for that was put in place by Kennedy, Eisenhower, (yes Nixon too), and LBJ and Carter.
Biden has flaws, and I wish Biden really did more to help Ukraine in the beginning of the war, but him helping out and clearing so much equipment to them was a genuinely good thing that he did while in office.
Whatever weapons and money everyone is sending Ukraine, double it.
Freaking truth.
Side thought purely as a hypothetical from a civilian standpoint: I'm wondering if it's too paranoid to consider figuring out how to smoothly use Monero for sending donations.
I'm wondering if records of sending aid to Ukraine will be the newest excuse to get disappeared by goons in the US, the same way they've been crushing the Constitutional rights of anyone who prominently voices anti-zionist dissent.
Apparently the FOB for the Ukrainians was next door to a FSB post
They shared the same Starbucks
I love the great news of Ukraine beating Putin's sorry behind - and how that development is spreading to many other news sources.
Slava Ukraini!
How I wish that the general Russian population would know more about it.
I live in a place full of Russians. Trust me, they know. The official state media tries to cover it up, but it's getting harder and harder. Most Russians know, they just can't talk about it publicly without risking prison. But Putin's days are numbered.
And what you have them know? Putin has prosecuted his propaganda in Russia exactly as he had in the West.
Russians think any and all news is bullshit, no source is to be trusted. And look what we have in America today. Huh.
And a lot of the planes that were hit literally can't be produced in Russia any more, to further rub it in.
It's a weird sensation to stick to this as someone so far away, but I feel plain proud of all the Ukrainian forces that made this happen so successfully.
They could just leave and this would all stop. Putins bitch ass knows how to stop this.
At this point, Putin can't stop. Weird that everyone acts like he has a choice.
Putin committed to this play, and then went all-in when it didn't play. Three years later, Russia is relying on a rickety, unstable, wartime economy, suffering more and more sanctions. If he pulls out, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, utter ruin. Which would be fine by me. Fuck Russia.
Doesn't mean he can't do it. It's not like he's concerned about what happens after his death
I see the two as linked (stopping the war and him falling out of that dangerous window of his) so he has every incentive to keep the war going
He could just hide in a bunker! Nothing bad have ever happened to a country leader that lost a war in a bunker! /s
He could declare victory and go home. Brag that he forced Ukraine into talks and that he stopped Ukraine from joining NATO and got some small land gains.
LMFAO
fuck war planes and fuck Russian Bombers especially
killing a war plane guarantees you a place in Valhalla BTW, but you'd better hurry up, killing war planes is all the rage right now
"Russian war machine, go fuck yourself."
Just as well they didn't let the US (AKA as Putin's bitch) know about it beforehand
Oh yeah. The US leadership is filled with Russian assets and Putin playthings.
I don't think it's because Trump is a Russian asset which is why they haven't told the White House, but because Ukrainians have had bad experience with their plans being leaked before. The 2023 Ukrainian offensive failed because the Russian knew they were coming, and everyone including the media and their mothers shouted it across the rooftops for weeks. Back then, I thought "isn't this a bad idea to report it on the media"? But then I am an armchair analyst so I guess the Ukrainians and Bidem knew what they were doing (turns out they didn't). Since then, Ukrainians choose to hide their intentions.
Edit: incorrect year
Even if it wasn't the 40 planes claimed, even if it's only the 5 we saw in the video , this is huge. Now Russia has to move MORE anti air assets, and more men, to these airfields and away from the front. Some bombers will be moved farther away, reducing the pace of operations. And if they have to start building bunkers for their big bombers that's tens of thousands of tons of concrete not going to buildings fortifications on the front lines. Not going to road repair. Not going to factories. And that's thousands of workers not doing other, more productive things. The success of this operation cannot be overstated
they also hit vladivostok.
on the other side of the continent. all the way from europe to the end of asia.
SLAVA UKRAINE, goddamn
Good.
I very much hope Ukraine's reported success is as good as they claim. Deleting 1/3 of the Russia's bomber capacity against Ukraine is nice.
By every account I've read from both sides, seems pretty fucking successful.
Awesome.
"Dozens of long range bombers destroyed"
This moment in history is akin to the introduction of airplanes and aircraft carriers. It's a whole paradigm shift. The future of war is drones. God help us if WW3 breaks out.
Fuck yeah!
When you phrase losses of aircraft in percentages of your fleet, you're talking about a disaster.
If usa would supply ukraine with weapons, instead of talking big, we would see a lot more destroyed russian weapons
The U.S. doesn't even talk big on Ukraine anymore. Proposing a joke of a "peace plan" where Russia gets their land and we get their minerals. Insulting Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. The Ukrainians kept us in the dark on this one so Trump wouldn't do any stupid shit like when he blabbed to Putin and got all our informants killed. Trusting the U.S. to do anything constructive on Ukraine would be a fool's errand.
A few more of those, and Russia has to walk and throw stones.
their ICBM fleet is poorly maintained - both land based and submarine launched; this event is a solid kick in the strategic nutsack.
SLAVA UKRAINE!
More!
Glory to our Ukranian HEROESSSS!!!!!! 👑🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 Insane, utmost respect!!!!!!
How much will having only 2/3 of their bomber fleet constrain Russia’s ability to wage war?
Depending on fuel availability and other obligations, it opens them up to some severe implications to enterprising forces. Logistically they must either weaken other theaters (like say Syria or Georgia or Kyrgyzstan) by flying them to replace the lost craft, or simply accept a weakened position with air power over Ukraine. (Assuming all are in service and none are reserve)
Even more so, Russian command will have to gauge if Ukraine is able to replicate this, and how often. If another strike like this is deemed not only possible but imminent, they will have to start using an airbase even further from the front, driving fuel costs up to deliver the same payloads. Additionally, increased flight time means less chance the target will be caught unprepared for your arrival and allows more time to relocate mobile AA to respond to your (now much longer and obvious) flight path.
Edit: The TU-95 (the nuclear capable bigboi) has a fuel range of 15k km (9300mi) so these were already well within range, just flight times will be longer.
You get it, brother.
This actually has huge implications for the war in general. Russias nuclear triad just had the dick blown off of it,
I'd be willing to wager that this was most, if not all the active bombers being used in the Ukrainian theatre. If they are following a loose rule of 3rds with their birds (deployed and flying missions, being prepped for deployment, shut down receiving repairs/overhauls), this very well could severely limit Russia's ability to keep up their cruise missile bombardment.
If that's the case, that frees up Ukraine to be much more flexible with their air defenses.
Not to mention if they were able to pull off a mission like this, allegedly using cell towers to fly their drones, what's stopping them from doing similar limited missions to tank factories, recruit depots, and other places that are further away from the front? Literally all of these targets now become viable because they will be much less heavily guarded than the nuclear triad bombers.
Protecting those assets pulls material and meat from the front lines, which further helps Ukraine.
I can't help but see this as a massive positive swing in momentum for Ukraine.
Ukrainian AA can't reach these bombers because these were used as launching platforms for long range missiles over Caspian, relocating SAM sites does nothing. Also it's likely that what was hit were good planes, some of which were even fitted with Kh-101 cruise missiles at the time of attack, and part of what is left are planes under maintenance. It could be so that only third or less of long range bombers are usable now, which would most obviously increase wear on them in immediate future
The more Ukraine do that, the less everyone else have to do it. Good.
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