Caporegime
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Also ties up a large amount of AA their (which is probably vulnerable to drone attack too by it's lack of effectiveness).
Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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Sergey Zhirnov was saying that it was vaguely described of who was on a plane. Also no information came out of who was onboard on the second plane. At the funeral a female visitor was identified to be a wife of Priggy's double.
Yevgeny Prigozhin in footage 'dismissing reports of his elimination'
Prigozhin is seen in the newly released footage wearing military fatigues in a car in Africa. He tells the camera: 'So fans of discussing my elimination... as a matter of fact, everything is fine.'www.dailymail.co.uk
I don't like the DM much so apologies for the link but it seems Prigo foreshadowed his death by claiming all was well days before it wasn't all well
Владелец ЧВК «Вагнер» Евгений Пригожин, вероятно, готовил для себя двойников - BBC News Русская служба
Русская служба Би-би-си рассказывает историю Руслана Юнусова, который переименовался в Евгения Пригожина, а теперь из тюрьмы судится за возвращение своего имени.
www.bbc.com
They found a way that isn't protected. Therefore, they need to make as much damage as possible.
I think there is also a sense of them making a point, we have reach, we have the means to target in serious depth. It dosnt matter how far away you station your assets they are not safe. Might not be able to take the bombers out of the air, but they are even more vulnerable on the ground where they spend 99% of their time.
According to wiki they had 119 of them in 2023. If it is just two of them then that's a bit like a **** in the ocean...
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Its not really the point though, they dont have to completely eliminate the threat to reduce it. Every time they strike the ability for Russian launch platforms they have to move them further away, slowly pushing the engagement ranges and accuracy further out. Also has a political and psychological impact. Will be interesting to see how Russia respond. They tried another large missile/drone barrage in response that didnt have any serious military impact.
It's not just two of them though, it's estimated to be more like 4 or 6 AFAIK.
Also even if they had say 119 of them it doesn't mean they're all flying, this is Russia after all. 30+ of them could be in need of repairs for example, some of the rest could have tasks in other areas of the country etc. if this airbase was supporting the invasion and only had a dozen or so then losing potentially half of them is a huge blow.
Not to mention they now know that multiple airfields within 700km of Ukraine are not safe for them and that's going to impact them too. You've then got fewer airfields to work from or you don't want to keep as many planes at the closer by airfields and of course all these planes have associated ground crew etc.. are they going to move a load of them 1000km away and support the same units at a different airfield.
This was probably a big blow for them, 6 of those planes alone is 300 million but all the knock-on effects are also going to cause a headache.
IIRC even the US can only routinely keep a portion of it's aircraft "ready", I think it's usually something like 20-30% will be out of service at any one time, for some airframes it can be closer to 50%*.
Given Russia fairly famously didn't have enough parts or fuel to keep a lot of their airmen in what is normally considered "minimum flight hours" not too long ago, and they've been running their aircraft at a much higher rate of operations for the last year or so I suspect that the "operational" number of aircraft is probably a lot lower.
Possibly the best result for Russia is if the two destroyed were being cannibalised for parts (at least they've not lost a working airframe), but if they were on the runway/taxiway that suggests they were at least flight worthy, if not flight ready.
I would suggest that even "just" 2 out of 119 is more than a drop in the ocean as every airframe they lose means they have to work the others harder to maintain the same level of operations, which means you are putting more hours on the airframe and engines, which means you need to increase the servicing and maintenance of each flying airframe and that becomes harder and harder to do.
This is true for the Ukrainians as well, but the Ukrainians are in a position to receive additional aircraft so they're probably much more worried about the actual crews than the airframes and although I know it's not going to be massively publicised I haven't heard many reliable rumours about Ukrainian aircraft being destroyed on the ground recently, possibly because Russia isn't targeting them, or possibly because they are either being kept out of range of the drones or being kept in proper shelters so a drone can't destroy them with a near miss. Even just the sort of U shaped earth/sandbag/concrete berms you sometimes see used is enough to offer a lot of protection compared to being in the open and is really easy to put in place fast.
*Typically the more complex ones, I think "rotary wing" aircraft tend to need more downtime for maintenance, and the Osprey's have something like 55% availability.
based on the volume of russian military planes that fall out of the sky inside russia (without being shot down by Putin) I'm not so sure they are flying air worthy kit
Also, I've seen a whole handful of videos showing fighter jets inside Russia this year trying to perform a turn at low altitude, over cooking it and flying nose first into the ground... so the lack of training is also a factor
here is a prime example, this was just 2 weeks ago and is just one of half a dozen instances of this exact method of loss of the aircraft that's happened this year and being recorded on video
Also, I've seen a whole handful of videos showing fighter jets inside Russia this year trying to perform a turn at low altitude, over cooking it and flying nose first into the ground... so the lack of training is also a factor
here is a prime example, this was just 2 weeks ago and is just one of half a dozen instances of this exact method of loss of the aircraft that's happened this year and being recorded on video
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True, but you have to factor in losing six in one night against how quickly the factory produces them, this is the Russian equivalent to the Airbus A400M so it's not like Ilyushin are knocking them out overnight.
The cost to replace these planes now vs 1970’s Soviet prices will be eye watering. Plus the Ukraine supplied many of the parts IIRC.
Just repurpose some of the planes stolen from Boeing and Airbus, ripping out the seats. The population can walk or get a bus.
Refit some of the oligarchs yachts. I bet you could fit a lot of Ukrainian washing machines and microwaves in those. All the heads might going missing though.
The reports are just western disinformation campaigns.
As long as the planes are air worthy on paper the Russian military will keep syphoning off the money.
Looks to be a turret from a Russian T90M.
Soldato
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Russia is consistently losing 20 to 25 artillery guns a day, you would think that would create not only logistical problems with having to bring up new equipment to replace what's been lost but gaps in the line where there is no artillery to cover areas where Ukraine is attacking.
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