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Shooting Down 11 Jets In 11 Days, Ukraine Nudges The Russian Air Force Closer To Organizational Death-Spiral (www.forbes.com)

submitted 10 months ago by machinin@lemmy.world to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

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An overview of the recent losses by the Russian air force and overall situation for their readiness. Kind of a follow-up on some questions I asked on other posts here.

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[-] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 10 points 10 months ago

Can someone ELI5 why Russia isn't able to send 10 jets for every 1 that Ukraine has? (I mean it's good they haven't, it's just that we're led to believe countries like the US, Russia and China have ginormous armed forces and when it's actually come down to it it's been a 2 year long war instead of what was supposedly going to be an immediate annihilation with overwhelming forces flattening out ukraine)

[-] wer2@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Russia has a limited supply of working jets, and limited supply of good pilots. Which they need elsewhere across their very large country and in other places (Syria).

In addition, Russia pulled back its air operations not because of Ukraine jets, but because of ground based air defense (missile that shoot down planes). Trading pilot/plane for pilot/plane is good for Russia, but trading a pilot/plane for a missile is a bad trade for anyone.