I have twitter comprehensively blocked, so I don’t know what points those twits might have made.
Non-combat losses back home are a completely ordinary problem for every military on earth. A certain F-35 in South Carolina coming immediately to mind.
The Russian loss of 25 planes and 9 helos in ~18 months doesn’t surprise me a bit.
Or is there some suggestion that these losses are actually sabotage being mis-reported as accidents for internal propaganda purposes?
It seems like a lot to me, at least compared to what I would expect for the US military, but I wouldn’t automatically attribute it to sabotage. The old saw applies here: “never attribute to (Ukrainian) malice anything that can be attributed to (Russian) stupidity”. Combine sloppy/inadequate training, a casual attitude toward safety among pilots and ground crew, and maybe an elevated sense of urgency due to the war, and I think a high non -combat loss rate is a reasonable expectation.
that, and Russian having their $$$-fingers in the election process … Same in Slovakia … where they are investing moneys to split the society into a bi-partisan - and hoping to curb european support for Ukr from this front.
And something else you didn’t mention but speaks to as a former ground safety NCO: degraded maintenance impacted by poor morale, poor training, and broken logistics (and therefore lack of spares, parts, and decent-quality expendables like fuel).
An inadequately maintained air force will suffer disproportionate non-combat operational losses for the reduced number of sorties they can generate.
It’s not totally outwith living memory to refer to a group engaged in a multi-voiced argument with no resolution as a “Polish parliament”.
But enough with the stereotypes, I suppose
Absolutely. I had the dubious privilege of operating a lot of aircraft belonging to Central and South American air forces in the early 1980s. Old, worn out, poor spares support, less than fully trained troops. And pilots with less than great skill and little opportunity to maintain their skills. Services like that flew little and crashed proportionally a lot. There are some risks that are easier to take if you just ignore them. And are young and dumb. But the stories … Ahh, the stories.
This was in organizations that generally had good morale and esprit de corps and no particular substance abuse problems. Something the Russians signally lack these days.
Finally, in any military actively engaged in combat, the combat forces have first dibs on the spare parts and the better equipment. So some aviation regiment well back in central Russia may have flown out their 5 best airplanes to the war and gotten 3 raggedy “lemons” (or “hangar queens” as we called them) in return. Airplanes with lots of problems almost better used just for spare parts, not even trying to fly them. Except for that pesky necessity to appear to HQ as a functioning unit able to fly and fight if called upon.
A kleptocracy, when graft is just a way of life, cannot field an effective military. It’s not just about stolen equipment - it’s the culture of lies. If you know your superior is lying to you, then you will lie to your superior, and they will lie to theirs, and neither the commanders nor the fighters in the field will know what’s really going on.
Good point. One of the harshest insults possible in the US military is to call somebody a liar. Because of the extreme corrosion that sets in the instant you can’t trust the word of the people over / under / around you.
The trouble with the US military, or the Navy of the last 20 years at least, is how it tends to balance swift and severe punishment for the occasional person caught lying with somewhat watered down, but no less career-ending and much more frequent punishment for people who actually tell the truth (and it’s just not what their superiors want to hear).
Not totally a stereotype.
The Polish parliament in the early modern period had rules that essentially forced decisions made by the body to be unanimous; any of the noble members of the body could essentially force it to adjourn with no action taken.
Wandering off topic again. History of Polish Parliament would belong in a new thread. If it directly pertains to the current invasion it would be OK.
Also off-topic is comments about US military that don’t pertain to the Invasion.
Russian penal system news…
Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza to be sent to penal colony. He was arrested by Russia in April last year.
Russian ultranationalist Igor Girkin, awaiting trial for criticizing the competence of Putin and the Special Military Operation, was reportedly attacked by Ukrainian prisoners. It’s possible - Girkin’s wife complained a few weeks ago that he was being transported to court in the same vehicle as Ukrainian prisoners. Since Girkin is one of the instigators of the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, he is hated by Ukrainians. Placing him in proximity to Ukrainian prisoners would be extreme negligence on the part of the Russian authorities or a deliberate attempt to cause harm/death to him without doing it directly. Or it could have been done by Russian guards and then blamed on Ukrainians.
Alleged photo of Girkin looking a bit beaten up:
The new Tucker Carlson show advertized on Russian state TV as coming to Russian airwaves this weekend turned out to be a 20-minute show of dubbed clips of already existing content. Carlson denied he was now working with Russian state TV.
Couple of good photos:
Drone capabilities:
Is that a remotely-operated device, or autonomous?
Remotely-operated, but one can imagine them being given AI in the future to acquire targets themselves.
Erm… I imagine that would be over a lot of people’s dead bodies.
“You are in direct violation of Penal Code 1.13, Section 9. Put down your weapon. You have twenty seconds to comply.”
I’m sure that would be the plan!
That would surely be in a future war, though. There are no civilians in Russia’s trench networks that snake their way through Ukrainian fields, so, hypothetically, if the drones had an area of operations defined by GPS, civilian casualties would be avoided.
Meanwhile, Special Operations Forces of Ukraine are claiming that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Sokolov, was killed in the Sevastopol HQ strike. I would still call this unconfirmed, though, until some Russian sources corroborate it. Admiral Sokolov would be the highest-ranking member of the Russian armed forces killed in the war so far.
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1706259014403658016
M1 Abrams arrive:
A downed drone is not safe. I’ve seen one video, from the drone’s camera, of a Russian soldier poking a downed drone with a stick and detonating it, and another from overhead of a Russian soldier shooting a downed drone a couple of yards away, with the same effect.
This was posted from a Russian source:
More details:
Meanwhile…
“The hard part about doing propaganda is that the past changes so quickly you have no idea what will happen yesterday.” - Darth Putin