Not sure if I read it here or elsewhere (reading so much about this these days that I can’t keep track), but there are (unconfirmed) indications that they may not (all) be dead…
Thrag
4115
Russian propaganda has shown to be another thing that has utterly failed in this conflict. Where Ukraine’s game has been on point.
Thrag
4117
Throw in some quality air defense for the airbases and Russia is extremely fucked.
Dejin
4118
That’s correct. As far as I can tell the exchange “Russian Warship Go Fuck Yourself” is likely accurate, but status of the Ukrainian Border Guards is unknown and Russia claims they are prisoners.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/26/ukraine-russia-snake-island/
abrandt
4119
Presumably this would have to be Russian-made jets from former Warsaw countries?
Not sure; that was the second report of it I’d found and the most credible one (the other was OSINT). We’ll soon see.
edit - to be clear, one would THINK so, as no Ukrainian pilots are trained on anything else. If we see other planes in the air even under a Ukrainian flag, that’s someone else flying.
vyshka
4122
I’d imagine so. Quite possible they might have “volunteer” pilots in them as well.
We seem to be coasting past the KAL '83-'84 pucker level
Maybe it’s Polish Air Force stock? They have some Soviet-era jets in inventory, similar to Ukraine.
The problem with giving Ukraine Eurofighters or the like is that their pilots would need a ton of training to get up to speed on them.
Finance professor and Youtuber Patrick Boyle on (among other things) the sanctions on Russian’s central bank, and whey they’re more important than the SWIFT sanctions (SWIFT is just messaging, the central bank is the actual clearances):
Thrag
4125
Some of the toughest sanctions yet to be imposed.
(fake obviously)
In case people don’t know already, a huge proportion of global aircraft leasing is done out of Ireland.
Edit: Not sure it’s going to do much about internal flights though. It’s not as though the leasecos are going to be able to repossess the planes in Russia.
I believe Poland and Ukraine both use the MiG-29.
abrandt
4128
Plus technical expertise and parts for maintaining them. Unless they ended up with some special volunteers at their airbases helping with that part for them.
Grifman
4130
This looks to be a good site for ongoing updates on the war:
Understanding War - Ukraine Updates
At best, or similar to the opening scene in “Enemy at the Gates”. They don’t have enough weapons to go around so they are told to grap one from a dead solider.
When I heard Zelensky was passing out AK-47 and urging the people to make Molotov cocktails, I thought it was suicide to send them up well-trained Russian soldiers. Now, I think maybe it is a fair fight.
I’ve probably told this story before, but when I was touring Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. My guide was Russian naval engineer officer on a nuclear sub. He told me one that surprised me and one thing that horrified me. The surprise was they never heard a US sub when patroling. The horrifying thing was that many of the sailors in his engineering section, were conscripts from the Stans, who spoke almost no Russian. Most were only barely literate in their language, almost none read Russian. Imagine trying to operate a nuclear reactor without being able to read the language, what could go wrong.
But let’s not get too cocky, Russian soldiers do learn, they did in WWII and again in Afghanistan. You don’t even need very smart soldiers, to take a place if you first turn a city tnto rubble.
Not an expert, but is this a thermobaric bomb going off?
Houngan
4133
No idea, but the size and the fireball growth certainly suggest it.
