How many are gone now? How many are left?
And how many of those left are airworthy?
They started the war with 8-10 in service (have seen various numbers). They’ve now lost two, and a third was damaged on the ground in Belarus quite a while ago. That was a drone attack by partisans that did relatively minor damage to the radar dome. There’s little reason to think it couldn’t have been repaired.
As to how many of the remaining 6-8 are airworthy, I’ve no idea. I’ve seen claims the number is as low as 1, but I haven’t seen anything to back that up. It’s probably not all 6-8, though, as they will have been logging fucktons of flight hours the past two years. Considering you need at least two to provide continuous coverage in a single location, plus a surplus capacity to rotate aircraft out when maintenance that takes longer than the second plane can remain airborne is required, and they’d likely want at minimum coverage across Crimea and the southern front (which this plane flying by the Sea of Azov would provide) as well as to the north to pick up drone attacks aimed at Moscow or wherever, they’re going to be stretched pretty thin, and have precisely zero capacity left for Syria or whatever.
I think 3 of those planes belong to India, and are therefore unavailable as targets at this time.
Found the source for the claim of only 1 remaining operational A-50 - a Forbes article about how the previous A-50 was shot down:
Two left, minus one now. I don’t see what his source for the other six being out of action is, though.
Most of the parts that they can’t replace are in that dome. Even “minor” damage to the dome might be an unrepairable mission kill (though the chassis could probably still be repurposed for use as a cargo plane).
Agreed that the dome is where all the good bits are, but if they have a some in need of overhaul that’s probably due to engines with too many flight hours and that sort of thing, so you could raid those aircraft for radar parts. Potentially.
One of the A-50s in the drone article/video (not the drone damaged one) had snow in the cockpit from a broken out window and another window was just plywood. I’m going with, needs overhaul on that one.
The article is new, but the information is dated. Hopefully this is the right place. It’s a NYT article, probably paywalled, but hopefully you can read it for free. I’ll put some quotes, but it’s rather lengthy (26pgs) and is based on 200+ interviews.
The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin - For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.
Now entering the third year of a war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the intelligence partnership between Washington and Kyiv is a linchpin of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. The C.I.A. and other American intelligence agencies provide intelligence for targeted missile strikes, track Russian troop movements and help support spy networks.
But the partnership is no wartime creation, nor is Ukraine the only beneficiary.
It took root a decade ago, coming together in fits and starts under three very different U.S. presidents, pushed forward by key individuals who often took daring risks. It has transformed Ukraine, whose intelligence agencies were long seen as thoroughly compromised by Russia, into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.
…
The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border. Before the war, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Americans by collecting intercepts that helped prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of a commercial jetliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Around 2016, the C.I.A. began training an elite Ukrainian commando force — known as Unit 2245 — which captured Russian drones and communications gear so that C.I.A. technicians could reverse-engineer them and crack Moscow’s encryption systems. (One officer in the unit was Kyrylo Budanov, now the general leading Ukraine’s military intelligence.)
And the C.I.A. also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, across Europe, and in Cuba and other places where the Russians have a large presence.
The relationship is so ingrained that C.I.A. officers remained at a remote location in western Ukraine when the Biden administration evacuated U.S. personnel in the weeks before Russia invaded in February 2022. During the invasion, the officers relayed critical intelligence, including where Russia was planning strikes and which weapons systems they would use.
“Without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians, or to beat them,” said Ivan Bakanov, who was then head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U.
Thanks for the recommendation, @CoolHandCox !
In case someone can’t access the NY Times story, here’s a gift link:
Zelensky gives an update to the total Ukrainian casualty count. He gave the number of 31,000 killed in action since the beginning of the war.
For what it’s worth, that number sounds low to me.
Just FYI, a PSA from Budanov. In case you were planning travel…
Many surprises await the russian occupiers in Crimea. The head of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Kyrylo Budanov, said that he would not recommend civilians to use the so-called “Crimea” bridge.
Budanov stated this in a video message published on his Facebook account on Sunday, February 25.
The head of the Defense Intelligence noted that Ukrainians and the Ukrainian state did not agree to recognize the occupation of Crimea, with which russia started the war against Ukraine ten years ago. Despite repression, resistance on the peninsula continues, Budanov emphasized. According to him, Ukraine is successfully fulfilling its tasks.
https://ukranews.com/upload/media/2024/01/01/65932d04ae040-1.jpg.webp
Huge Russian steel plant hit by drones and on fire. 18% of Russian production. Every morning Russians wake up wondering what will be shot down, sunk or blown up today.
A crappy video here:https://youtu.be/kSnKU-AnIWw?si=pEB9kLflEg-3sKTP
Europe understands how vital it is to defeat Russia in Ukraine. The idea of providing troops is being considered in recent comments by Macron. Other EU leaders are publicly saying hell no. I wouldn’t be surprised if their private conversations with Macron say differently.
I believe the US stalemate is adding a dangerous element to this war. The EU may need to act decisively against Russia before Ukraine’s supplies are at a level where they can’t defend themselves.
Even if it’s just rhetoric that’s pretty significant. The Ukrainians have had a month of slowly losing small villages. Nothing huge but they are clearly on the back foot currently, likely due to the supply situation. I hope we (the US) can stop playing politics long enough to get them the supplies they need.
Ukraine claims to have destroyed 10,000 artillery systems. Even with the caveats of this being best case it’s a big dent in the Russian equipment advantage.
Russia has claimed the destruction of an M1 Abrams tank.
First M1 Abrams Tank Destroyed In Ukraine—Social Media Reacted (forbes.com)
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen floats the idea of using frozen Russian assets to supply the Ukrainian war effort and rebuild the country.
“Our coalition, representing more than half the global economy, took action to immobilize $285 billion in Russia sovereign assets and jointly affirmed this money will remain frozen until Russia pays for the immense damage it has caused. . . I also believe it is necessary and urgent for our coalition to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction. While we should act together and in a considered way, there is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability. It would make clear that Russia cannot win by prolonging the war.”
I am wondering … is it just “chance” or is there more to it: 10 russian planes downed in the past 10 days …
- 7 Su-34
- 2 Su-35
- 1 A-50
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1b1cvk2/with_the_2nd_russian_aircraft_today_2_russian/
how “stealthy” (to the general public) could the Ukr be using one or 2 F-16s (urgent delivery) ??? or is that out of question?
There were also rumors of F-16 fired missiles when the A-50 was shot down a couple of days ago
Or are the RU just getting more offensive at the moment, taking more risk to create “momentum”, hence running higher risk sorties?
I think this news is related to the earlier article about increased NATO allies involvement in the war.
The situation at the front in Ukraine is declining.
good inside article on the 10 plane downings in the past 10 days:
The official Ukrainian story is that they downed the A-50 using S-200, a very long range but very old tech Soviet-era AA missile. Unofficial Russian reporters seem to accept that the A-50 was shot at by S-200, but insist that they shot down the S-200 missiles with a Pantsir AA system but after the Ukrainian missiles were shot down a Pantsir missile already in the air locked onto the A-50 by mistake. The Ukrainian announcement might be a lie covering for some new capability they don’t want to advertise. The unofficial Russian account might be true or might just be Russian milbloggers not wanting to admit that their AA can’t deal with a missile system first deployed in 1967.
In that particular case, unannounced F-16 seems really unlikely, because even the longest range AMRAAM variants would require an F-16 to be 100km into Russian-held territory to hit the A-50, so some variant of the S-200 story is plausible. The other possibilities, none likely, are that Patriot has way longer range than previously admitted, the Ukrainians have developed drones capable of launching air-to-air missiles, or the Ukrainians have infiltrated Russian AA crews or some other sort of sabotage.
The rash of Sukhois that have been falling out of the sky is another story. Either the Russians are exposing them a lot more, the Ukrainians have changed the way they’re using existing AA, or the Ukrainians have gained a new, unadvertised AA capability. Hard to tell which, though if it’s unannounced use of F-16s I’d be surprised. More likely a combination of Russians taking more risks and the Ukrainians moving some NASAMS and/or Patriot batteries closer to the front because there have been relatively few massive Russian cruise missile attacks on Kyiv and Lviv (compared to last year), and the endless Shahed drone strikes are better dealt with using stuff like mobile Gephart AA platforms rather than spending hugely expensive missiles shooting down inexpensive drones.
Any which way, it’s been a shitty few weeks for the Russian air force. May they have many more such weeks to come.