We haven't seen any independent reports about Ukraine's drone strike yesterday morning against Russia's strategic bomber force (Tupolev Tu-95's, Tu-22's and Tu-160's). Ukraine claims that 40 or more of these aircraft were hit by its drones; if so, that would mean that up to a third of them have been damaged or destroyed. (Since the factories that produced these aircraft, and components for them, have mostly been shut down or drastically reduced in capacity, a severely damaged aircraft will take so long to repair and restore that it might as well be written off as destroyed anyway.)
My first thought is that this attack is not a surprise. Anyone studying military history and current military technology could have (and in many cases did) predict such a strike against Russian assets. The only surprise to me is that it's taken so long to do it. I thought it would come within the first couple of years of the war.
Second, this should be an extremely urgent wake-up call to the West. Drone flights over our air bases have been publicly reported for years; I'll be very surprised indeed if some, if not most of them were operated by potential enemies such as China, Russia, Iran and others. Some may also have been operated by terrorist groups or drug cartels looking for potential high-profile targets. A strike similar to Ukraine's could be launched against the USA at any time by almost anyone, because there will be no difficulty getting drones and their explosive payloads into this country and right up to the boundaries of the air bases concerned. Our internal security measures are laughably poor (and I speak as one who had extensive experience of anti-terrorism measures in another country for the best part of two decades). I hope Defense Secretary Hegseth and his top brass are alert to that possibility, and I hope they're doing something very concrete about it - because if they're not, we could lose half our Air Force overnight. I mean that literally. The same could happen to any or all NATO country(ies).
My third thought is that this might escalate the Russia-Ukraine war to a new level of viciousness. Russia's strategic bomber force, one of the "nuclear triad" legs that safeguard its independence and national pride, has suffered a severe blow. That might be enough to make already paranoid Russian politicians and military leaders even more so. How might they retaliate? There are a number of ways, up to and including tactical nuclear weapons. Will they go that far? Who knows? I suspect we may be about to find out.
Fourth, where did the containers holding those drones come from? I don't think they were all smuggled clandestinely across an active war zone to penetrate Russia. I suspect at least some of them were shipped into Russia through third parties, perhaps as outwardly innocent-seeming commercial containers containing normal goods and products. Can that have been done without the involvement of the intelligence and/or customs officials in those third party nations? Possibly . . . but I'd be more inclined to believe that a certain degree of officially blind eyes were involved. If Russia can determine the ingress routes of those containers, it may be able to use its own extensive intelligence resources to find out whether official tolerance was given to their passage. If so, I won't be at all surprised if Russia does something nasty to discourage those nations from further meddling. What might that be? Who can say?
Finally, this highlights how parlous is the international security situation at present. From Ukraine's point of view, this strike was a no-brainer. Ukraine's already losing on the battlefield, slowly but steadily. A big propaganda success like this, causing severe damage to its enemy, can only look positive from the loser's perspective. However, for the nations supporting Ukraine, it's a lot more difficult and dangerous. If it leads to Russian retaliation against, not just Ukraine, but every nation that supports it, that may drag the entire region into the war whether they like it or not. The almost suicidal fixation of some nations to support Ukraine no matter what is another aspect of this problem (for example, Germany's recent removal of restrictions on its weapon exports to Ukraine, allowing the latter to use them to attack anywhere in Russian territory). In physics, Newton's Third Law of Motion assures us that "to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". In war, the reaction is equally guaranteed, but not that it'll be equal. It can be a lot more than equal, to make a point. If Russia hits out at any and every nation it believes might have been involved with or supported the Ukraine drone strike, that may drag the whole of NATO into the war - and right now, NATO is in no condition to sustain a conflict of that nature for any length of time.
So . . . a propaganda and military success for Ukraine, but producing a much more volatile and dangerous situation for the wider region. Was that a win, overall? We'll find out . . .
Peter
This was not a smart move on anybodies part.
ReplyDeleteThe Russians won't let this happen again.
Ukraine is still losing.
The Russians did not lose 40 airplanes.
8 seems to be the number.
The Hatred of the West for Russia will destroy the West, not Russia.
This will end, but not the way everyone in the USA imagines.
@Thomas: They may have lost 8 aircraft totally destroyed, but any serious damage to one of those aircraft is going to remove it from operations for months, possibly years, as the decrepit Russian aviation industry will struggle to find parts and skilled workers to repair it. For that reason, I suspect the figure of 40 aircraft may be more or less valid, even if not all were totally destroyed.
DeleteEight out of the operational wings. Russia has hundreds of non-upgraded aircraft in storage. Eight will be brought forward and refitted quickly.
DeleteGreat analysis, and the blowback point is a good one. Attacking part of Russia’s nuclear triad, that is required by the salt treaty to be countable, is a way to increase the paranoia of Russia. Add to these a recent call by an ex uk military to help Ukraine get nuclear weapons.
ReplyDeleteI was a cold war, USSR/Russia, super hater. Post USSR collapse, I learned much about Russia that I was previously ignorant of.
ReplyDeleteI currently have a MUCH higher opinion of Russia and Putin.
The public records are very clear, since the collapse, the Western alliance has been very mercenary/deceitful towards Russia.
Russia on the other hand turns out to be VERY treaty/law and order oriented. All the back stabbing that I can find was done by "US", not "Them".
Since the beginning of the SMO, Putin and Lavrov have been very clear about how they will proceed and what they expect. We seem to think they're lying or bluffing. We have "agreement incapable", unserious statesmen/leadership. We seem to be Jr. Varsity, they are clearly, at least Journeyman if not master class.
Of course, everybodies mileage varies.
"All the back stabbing that I can find was done by "US", not "Them"."
DeleteThen you didn't look very hard.
Go look up Transnistria.
What about Transnistria? Russia has upheld their obligations to the best of their ability. On the other hand, Ukraine and NATO have done their best to strangle the semi-autonomous region.
DeleteRussia should not be there to begin with.
Delete"could have (and in many cases did) predict such a strike against Russian assets"
ReplyDeleteWho exactly predicted this - it must have been one of the best kept secrets. Must have been one of the basement-CIA-dwellers in Salt Lake City. I haven't seen anything predicting this type of excursion deep (used with caution - you can only go halfway deep - when they get to Murmansk, they're completely at the northern Russian border, not deep anymore - into Russia.
I don't believe that the U.S. has this same capability, yet, for (inexpensive) drone use in enemy territory. The Houthis still seem to be capable of disrupting Red Sea shipping. Iran still has nuclear materials & living imams who want all Christians and Jews dead. Maduro & Kim Jong Un seem to be thriving.
Last time anything comparable by the U.S. was the man-in-the-middle Stuxnet overspeed of the Iranian centrifuges in 2009, a joint CIA/Mossad event, and the assassination of Soleimani in 2020.
Ukraine continues to conduct special operations against Russia, which, while producing serious damage, aren't changing the course of the war. It appears that these special operations are most beneficial to the US/NATO countries and not to Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteThe threat to US air bases, other military installations and critical industry/infrastructure by drones should be taken seriously.
-Randale6-
ReplyDeleteThe Ukrainians are still doomed, all this will do is make Russia take more and more territory. I will not be surprised if Russia decides to complete the "holy trinity" by conquering Kiev itself. After that western Ukraine will return to its original owners.
Yup, yup, yup, yup, and Yup.
ReplyDeleteSome people are calling this Russia's Pearl Harbor.
BTW, Sun Tzu rules apply here also. Never do the king a small harm comes to mind as one rule.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, three years of war have taken Russia from having the second-most powerful army on the planet, to having the second-most powerful army in Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteThey still have to hold back a substantial portion of their forces for
1) defense from the Chinese Hordes, and
2) internal dissent suppression.
They can barely make headway measured in square meters per week against Ukraine.
The last thing they need is to drag another twenty first- and second-tier adversaries, some spoiling for a fight, into this conflict.
But the fact that they invaded Ukraine in the first place argues against their leadership, including Vlad, having anything approaching common sense or non-delusional appreciation for their own capabilities in the first place.
When fighting a baby armed with a live grenade, you have two problems:
1) the grenade, and
2) the baby.
And while you're up, Peter, let's all recall that The World's Foremost Drone Expert has assured everyone repeatedly that drones, especially commonly available consumer drones, pose absolutely no threat whatsoever to anyone, anywhere, despite only live video of them destroying thousands of tanks and APCs on both sides in this conflict.
So there's not only nothing to worry about here, but one can also rest assured that no terrorist group will realize that if Tupolev bombers can be sorted out, so can civilian Boeing and Airbus products, whether they come with or without the tasty passenger filling.
So sleep tight, drones are harmless, and no one will ever, ever use them to attack defenseless civilian airports and passengers, just like they've never targetted those at any time in recorded history. /sarc
There's stupid, and there's brass-marching-band-announcing-your-arrival stupid.
Cue the music in 3, 2, ...
LOL your opinion is noted.
DeleteAlong with the Russians are running out of ammo, their artillery has minute of city accuracy and other very correct comments from you over the past few years.
Day 1192 of Any Day Now™, and more Russian casualties in three years going nowhere in Ukraine than they suffered in 10 years getting clobbered in Afghanistan, pretty much puts Russia's actual military prowess on naked display to the entire world.
DeleteFunny how we don't hear any more stories about Russia lobbing 10x the number of artillery shells as Ukraine, but their front-line troops are press-ganged Norks and ethnic cannon fodder from the -stans, their drones are Iranian hand-me-downs, and nobody has seen hide nor hair of their navy or air farce in months, except when they're on fire.
And six years on, you still can't add an original comment on a topic, nor restrain the kneejerk urge to respond to my replies, while still failing to offer anything beyond ad hominem to further the discussion.
It must be tedious to be defined entirely by one's shortcomings.
Aesop's fables is right. Fables, that is. Russia afraid of China? Really? Which is why the NorKs have been happily sending troops to Ukraine to get them blooded. And why China has been happily trading with Russia despite sanctions etc. China is the last thing Putin needs to worry about, but keep grasping those straws. Remind me.. how many casualties did you say Russia had taken by now? Was it 10 or 20 million, I forget? (I exaggerate, but not by much if you extrapolate your numbers) also...how many times have the Russians run out of tanks, artillery, artillery rounds, etc? Any day now...
DeleteRussia has averaged an advance of 30 square kilometers per day for the past couple of months. In the context of a trench war of attrition, that's an incredible offensive.
Delete@Anon 11:02P,
DeleteHow To Tell Everyone You Know Nothing About Russia Without Telling Everyone You Know Nothing About Russia.
Russia's paranoia about invading Golden hordes goes back not centuries, but a millenium and more.
They also had more casualties in shooting border clashes with China in the 1960s than we lost in the Vietnam War. This is open-source history, chief. You could look it up.
Their current situation is "partial allies of convenience."
If you think China and Russia are pals, or ever will be, you simply don't know what you don't know.
Nations don't have friends.
They have interests.
It's currently in China's interest to weaken NATO and pre-occupy the U.S., while having someone else establish the modern precedent that seizing other countries' territory is still A-OK in the 21st century.
See if you can suss out why that would be, and get back to us.
Then ask yourself what 36M Russians in Siberia are going to do when 1.4B Chinamen come calling, five seconds after Russia is exhausted by Ukraine, the precedent for "might makes right" territorial acquisition already having been established.
I'll wait while you take off your shoes to work that out.
I don't think higher ups in (probably) Kazakhstan or Armenia needed to be involved. Basic low level bribery of the customs inspectors would be enough to get the sensitive bits through. And my guess is they ordered the drones direct from China and probably a bunch of the other bits. They'd look like just another patriotic group ordering drones to donate to the victorious forces of the motherland
ReplyDeleteWas it a wise move? maybe. It will almost certainly reduce Russia's bombardment because they don't have the airframes to launch the missiles from. Plus it underlines to Russia that strikes can be anywhere. So they can''t trust anything. Working on national paranoia in that way is going to do wonders for lowering the effectiveness of the war effort.
When Germany removed restrictions, they effectively declared themselves a belligerent. Who knows how many other nations Russia will decide are belligerents? I think we may just find out.
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd
"And while you're up, Peter, let's all recall that The World's Foremost Drone Expert has assured everyone repeatedly that drones, especially commonly available consumer drones, pose absolutely no threat whatsoever to anyone, anywhere, despite only live video of them destroying thousands of tanks and APCs on both sides in this conflict."
ReplyDeleteWho is "The World's Foremost Drone Expert" ?
Matt Bracken wrote about this a year or two ago.
ReplyDeleteConcur with Francis. Bribery works... and I don't think tactical nuclear weapons are off the table, they are probably even 'closer' to use than last week. Putin does NOT want to lose or lose face any worse than he already has.
ReplyDelete1 tactical nuke pops = every nuke in existence flying every which way, beginning within about 72 hours, per about every single NATO and US war game simulation since about 1954.
Delete(BTW, file "Ukraine launches 200 plutonium-encrusted dirty bomb drones at Russian cities the next day" under the folder The enemy gets a vote. That's assuming NATO nations don't start handing theater-missile-compatible tactical nukes to Ukraine the same day. Both of which is why nukes are off the table, unless someone is 8-billion kinds of suicidal. Change my mind.)
I'll lay cash money for odds that if Putin so much as reaches for that button, the last thing that'll go through is mind will be the bullet from some earnest young soldier's Makarov, and Bob's your uncle! , Russia announces his tragic stroke (which is technically an unplanned cerebral hemorrhage, so not a complete lie), and Russia gets someone (relatively) less megalomaniacal in charge.
Under the enemy gets a vote:
DeleteWhy do folks get fixated on nukes? There are far more subtle ways to finish off a failing Empire.
As porous as our boarder has been, as our internet has proven to be (daily reports of massive data breeches etc.) as unstable the Gimme Dats have been when even a brief interruption of their GIBS AKA EBT Cards and such.
HOW Long after the Grid goes down and the EBT card fails for massive chaos?
Also, many "interesting reports" of how Chinese made solar gear has shut them down or worse set those lithium batteries into uncontrolled thermal reaction via cell phone command and so forth.
I remember how Telsa made the news a few years ago when a hurricane was a range issue and THEY end out a cell phone command to override Telsa's range limits for the benefit of the owners.
The reason most lithium batteries have a reserve power not available is to keep the battery control module active to prevent thermal excitement.
AKA how about a cell phone command for a huge % of lithium battery devices including your Chinese made smart phones to become lithium flares.
I *Think* Israel POINTED OUT THAT IDEA with pagers, eh?
Stupid wars do not make your Empire secure. Nor does SHIPPING OFF your weapons critical part Manufactuing to China and such.
It's NOT the 70's Aesop.
Michael,
Delete1) 1 pt. for sticking to facts, instead of pejoratives. This is my sincerely shocked face.
2) None of that has anything to do with this not being the '70s.
3) Nuclear war games are run, and have been multiple times annually up to 5 minutes ago, and we generally put our actual best and brightest on the OPFOR.
4) One nuke launch becomes all of them, in about 3 days' time. Every. Single. Time.
5) That noted, OldNFO brought up the prospect of Russia trying the tactical nuke option. It would be both idiotic and genocidal on a planetary scale, for the reasons noted, but as I pointed out earlier, Russia trying to conquer Ukraine in the first place (let alone buying into 70 years of their own corrupt and gun-decked military readiness reports) was delusional and idiotic as well, so there's no accounting for massive stupidity.
6) Despite that, there's nothing I disagree with regarding other alternatives in what you wrote, and never said anything to the contrary, so if you imagined otherwise, you win the Straw Man Victory Trophy.
7) Any nation setting out to attempt what you describe would basically be ringing the dinner bell to launch everything anyways. It's also not 1941 either, or even 2001, but such a diffuse attack on the entire civil society would be met exactly like Pearl Harbor and 9/11: unrestricted war against all perceived enemies, and screw the bag limit. Scores would be settled on an international scale, and everything would fly. This is what Mutually Assured Destruction means, and we have entire service branches dedicated to carrying it out to the last jot and tittle of the playbook.
Russia lost some chips. Crap keeps getting real for them. Them having nukes in the first place is the only reason this was covered, exactly like it hasn't been covered in Ukraine for three years, and for the same reason.
The way to have prevented this war would have been to tell Moscow that any attack would mean Moscow got obliterated, by handing Ukraine a few theater missiles with nuclear MT city-killing warheads.
We're past that point now, and instead, we should be handing Ukraine whatever we can spare to so wear out Russia they eventually - just like in Afghanistan in the 1980s - have to admit they can never win, and they retire to the status quo ante.
Otherwise, they'll have to conquer all of Ukraine, with forces they do not possess, at a cost they cannot bear, and then follow up with an endless insurgency there until they commit genocide on every surviving Ukrainian, and stay worldwide pariahs for another couple of centuries.
Abandoning Ukraine now, as Trump's been trying to do, unsuccessfully, would be Trump making Biden's Afghanistan rout look like a sound military operation by comparison, it would trigger a bloodbath there and destroy US credibility in 190 other countries for a century, and Trump's chicken-hearted departure would ensure that he'd be tarred with that mantle for a thousand years to come, and join the ranks of folks like Benedict Armold and Vidkun Quisling. Wiser heads have largely halted that impulse within him, hopefully for good.
Cheering on Putin under these circumstances continues to be unseemly and depraved.
"Winning" is off the table for both countries. Quitting, or losing, are all that remain. For both of them.
Secretary Hegseth might want to restart the Red Cell base security testing operations of the mid-80s.
ReplyDelete@oldNFO
ReplyDeleteThe problem with tac nukes is that they really really have to work. A failed nuke is existential disaster because if that one fails it suggests many of the other Russian nukes won't work either.
If I were Putin I'd be really really nervous about that possibility. Though I guess if Russia launched, say, 10 and 7 worked they could blame AA defenses for the 3 fails, as long as the missiles made it into Ukraine
I think that the best overall coverage on open media is from The War Zone, twz.com. They are reasonably pro-Ukrainian, but overall pretty objective.
ReplyDeleteContrary to what bloggers who should(?) know better, I doubt that Piyin is going to launch any nuclear strikes. One of TWZ's articles notes that the Ukes have destroyed at least some Russian strategic air assets.
Other so-called "experts" have stated that attacking Russian aircraft constitutes a war crime. Uh, the bombers are firing missiles at Ukrainian targets, mostly civilian concentrations. That makes them legitimate target, IMNSHO.
Lastly, don't expect that Trump or his band of boot-lickers will do anything about the vulnerability of US forces to the same type of attack.
ReplyDeleteTrump prizes loyalty to himself over competence, as witnessed by far too many of his choices for cabinet(not to mention his VP, "Duplo" Vance, who makes Kamela look like a Nobel Physics prize winner by comparison).
Why would the Ukeleles *grin* go after aircraft again? Now they have proven they can strike deep into Russia---why not, say, take out some of the big bridges over big, big rivers that the Trans-Siberian RR runs on? That would put a crimp into aid from China. And the Ukes have lots of people who were educated in Russian and can pass as Russian.
ReplyDeleteAesop, I'm actually looking forward when the CIA's unlimited supply of 100 dollar bills like I saw in Afghanistan are deemed WORTHLESS.
ReplyDeleteThat's when much of the "THEY Started it" troubles and Canned Sunshine threats will end.
Will hurt at home, yes. Less than nuclear sunburns of the survivors. The flash binded children and all that that our Sports War Games have kept OVER THERE
Our unlimited rubber checks are bringing us to that time. It's a race to see if indeed Hemmingway was correct about:
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
Ernest Hemingway
The financial collapse is nigh inevitable.
DeleteThe problem with that is war will cease to be on our terms, and will be pretty much planetary, as every nation decides the time is ripe to settle all old scores.
If you think Pax Americana has been bad, wait until you see Bellum Universale break out in 200 countries.
Peter the best explanation of this situation.
ReplyDeletehttps://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34273
Was is a racket
Smedley Butler wrote that when he was a paid shill for the pro-isolationist communists, and he needed their money to eat, long after retiring as one of the foremost racketeers.
DeleteIt's kind of like listening to a pornstar tell you about how she came to Jesus, after only 50 years in the porno business. And still wearing a G-string: distasteful in every sense.
It's also why, despite two Medals Of Honor, his memory is largely that of an institutional pariah in the Corps, and an embarrassment to the nation, after his previous decades of valorous service.
Links Aesop to your General Butler comment.
ReplyDelete