Great, how much of this type of thinking is there out their amongst the more extreme elements of Russian society and how the hell did that get broadcast, from what is a state controlled broadcaster. Usually most broadcasters have slight delay built in so that this sort of thing can be stopped.
I mean... nutjobs exit everywhere. Russia had a major politician claiming that Russia possessed a device that could change the magnetic field of the earth and cause the US to sink to the bottom of the ocean. I do miss Zhirinovsky sometimes. On the other hand the US had a major politician advocating what amounted to alternative medicines for covid-19 so...
Remember Russia also had an anti-war protest take place on the air. So you can gather they don't have the best control over what their own state sponsored media outlets are putting out there.
Yep I saw it earlier today. First of all fanbois write insane on their social media posts. It's not insane and even though the pilot is a Russian pilot he won't be feeling the best after banging out. Ejections aren't very kind to bodies because they tend to compress spines and damage a few things. It didn't sound like he broke anything when he hit the ground, but he was lucky that he had a zero zero seat because if he didn't he would've been in that fireball. I suspect he ate a MANPAD.
The same would apply to anyone. At low level there is very like warning and without a MAWS the pilot won't know the direction the missile is coming from.
It's one of the mysteries of this war. Why didn't Russia hit Ukraine harder on day 1? Why did Russia give up on their SEAD/DEAD efforts after some initial successes? Why did it take Russia 6+ months to take decisive steps to remedy the deficiency of troops on the front line? Why would Russia rather call up mobilized personnel and pull vehicles out of storage then use the conscripts and equipment they already have? Why does Russia use stand-off weapons so extensively but is so scarce on direct-attack PGMs? Why don't we have more footage of Russia's UCAVs in play (even if the Orions all died, where's the footage from the Mohajers)? Why was Russian EW so devastating in the past but so lackluster here?
No idea how true it is but according to something I read months ago the Russians wanted to limit the amount of damage the caused because they were under the mistaken impression that the Ukrainian government would collapse and of the need to avoid alienating the Ukrainian population.
I suspect that risk aversion played a part. We know that Kh-31 shots were taken at long ranges and this significantly reduced the PK.
The theory is that Russia didn't go all out because its EW would also affect its own troops and that although its EW is capable they aren't good a fully integrating its use with wider operations on the level needed. There is also the theory that they kept some stuff back in case it was needed against NATO; due to worries some of the most capable stuff would be captured [some indeed were] and not to reveal all their capabilities.
That's been the prevailing theory, but it's a lot more then that. Russia went in Kharkov with a purely symbolic infantry force, took losses, backed off, tried again with a slightly larger force, and then gave up. What prevented Russia from throwing 10-20k troops at Kharkov? It may well have fallen, initial defenses there were small and poorly prepared. Just not so small that a few hundred troops could take it.
Russia has Rychag-AV and Il-22PPs in place. Russia also has radar-homing missiles. It also took Ukraine time to get their air defenses hidden and set up. Quite a few were destroyed in Russia's initial SEAD/DEAD effort. Why did that effort stop?
This makes some sense but we don't see Il-22PP sorties. We don't even see a whole lot of activity from Russia's Tu-214Rs.
I have no idea if they employed anything other than Kh-31Ps but these were not very effective because the Russians were undertaking long range shots in order to avoid air defences. This also explains why cruise and ballistic missiles were employed against the Ukrainian GBAD.
Yes you are right, Here is an other person apparently on RT that is saying that Russia cannot win and there appears to be no attempt to stop him. This was from MSN News.I mean... nutjobs exit everywhere. Russia had a major politician claiming that Russia possessed a device that could change the magnetic field of the earth and cause the US to sink to the bottom of the ocean. I do miss Zhirinovsky sometimes. On the other hand the US had a major politician advocating what amounted to alternative medicines for covid-19 so...
If you want to explore the question of systematic issues with radical political stances in Russian state ideology, the Russia and the West thread is perfect for that.
Russia isn't a totalitarian state. It's authoritarian, but there are protests and opposition political activity. As the war effort goes poorly, especially in ways that are publicly visible (loss of territory) this will impact the domestic situation.
No doubt the situation is bad but are we seeing the whole picture? What about Russian units which are not badly equipped? What about newly mobilised troops who don't have rusty AK-74s and who don't have to buy their own camo?
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