- Ukraine downed a Russian Su-34 fighter jet over Kursk amid an ongoing territorial push.
- The Su-34, worth around $36 million, is Russia’s most efficient fighter bomber with advanced tech.
- Ukraine has previously held long kill streaks with Russian Su-34s.
russians are razing entire villages now because they can’t advance in any other way (currently). they didn’t do that in first days of the war, or in 2014. that’s because they can’t use maneuver effectively now for combination of reasons (loss of skilled personnel, armoured vehicles, constant surveillance, contested airspace) (unlike ukrainians now in kursk)
The Russian (and the Soviet) army was never great at maneuver warfare. That requires field autonomy from commanders. Autocrats can’t keep a strong, smart, well-trained and somewhat autonomous army since they always fear coups.
That’s why historically Russia has been victorious by obliterating cities via massed artillery and air bombardment. This doesn’t work so well unless the enemy stays put or assaults your fortified lines.
I wonder what Ukraine’s long-term game is with Kursk, taking territory this way they proved they can but keeping it is a whole other story. It certainly keeps their enemy off-balance and forces them to spread while making them look even weaker.
that’s only half of the problem. the other half is that maneuver warfare requires encrypted radios, EW equipment, spotter drones, night vision, good sensors on tanks/APCs/helis, everything has to be mechanized or portable, in other words - lots of expensive kit, and importantly it also requires thorough training to use that kit effectively. russians don’t have that. saudis have the kit but no training and their army is crippled by extremely limited agency of field commanders resulting from coup-proofing and petty office politics
russians were able to move freely using deception and surprise against the 2014 ukrainian army. all that training ukrainians have undergone now pays off
that’s a good question that only maybe 30 people in the world know answer to. kursk oblast has several interesting things, all of which can be used as bargaining chips by ukrainians:
all of this comes with a massive caveat that everything we know comes from russian telegram channels, because ukrainians maintain very tight opsec and let out only very little specifically cleared information
oh cool now ukrainians have surrounded korenevo. expect shenanigans today
Oh yeah, I forgot about the coms gear. Unlike Russian troops relying on cell phone towers during the invasion (while simultaneously knocking the towers down). The EW gear would make it even harder for an already ill-equipped and disorganized defense force to coordinate.
And I bet Ukraine is getting some nice up-to-date intel from NATO assets (satellites, SIGINT, HUMINT…) which helps them decide where to attack and when to evade.
ukrainians have their own capable humint. remember, lots of ukrainians can speak russian at native speaker level. russians can’t do the same
after capture of sudzha train station, and maybe before that, ukrainians have all the frequencies used by russian trains. i bet they can make good use of their EW capabilities there
Listen-in and cause confusion. So many possible hijinks.
Bucha masacre happened in March 2022. The war started on the 24th of February.
News of civilians shot, raped started flowing in since the start of the war.
russians were doing this while swaths of them were indoctrinated into thinking they will be welcomed with open arms. As saviors.
Stop whitewashing russia.
this is not what i’m talking about. these cases of wholesale destruction and ethnic cleansing happened after russians controlled territory, not as a prerequisite to advance. it’s also quite possible that these units were explicitly ordered to do that, and it’s not a result of poor discipline or anything like this