there hasn’t been russian attacks on resupply convoys yet, although that’s probably due to nato countries having really good intel and recon around deliveries like that.
i do agree that having ua fighters operational reduces the bombings russia can do in the west.
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1516638689710985216
Wait, that’s what the US was worried about when the original fighter deal fell through?
A random came in to point out the Pentagon statement was ambiguous and could be interpreted to mean that countries have supplied spare parts for Ukraine’s planes so they have more in-service fighters. I haven’t seen the actual statement but jfc if that’s the case, given the miscommunication from before.
The nice thing about the Azovstal plant is it has its own dock if the Russians felt like letting a 3rd party evacuate people.
Traditionally, when soldiers in a war enter a neutral country, they are held prisoner. NATO hasn’t been following that, we let the Ukrainians have a jet back that landed in Romania
Ok, earlier in the press conference he wasn’t explicit about planes so I can understand why it could be confusing but this is somewhat reassuring.
Q: And you said earlier that the Ukrainians have now more fighter aircraft than they had two weeks ago. Can you give us…
MR. KIRBY: More operable fighter aircraft than they had two weeks ago.
Q: So can you give us an idea of – did they receive more? And an idea of how many? Dozens?
MR. KIRBY: I would just say without getting into what other nations are providing that they have received additional platforms and parts to be able to increase their fleet size – their aircraft fleet size, I think I’d leave it at that.
Platforms and parts.
Q: What is a platform?
MR. KIRBY: Platform is an airplane in this case. They have received additional aircraft and aircraft parts to help them, you know, get more aircraft in the air. Yes.
No thank you, he’ll just do war crimes.
I also suspect that Russia lacks the real time intelligence to hit convoys in Western Ukraine. To do that you’d probably need air superiority as satellite data too slow (unless NATO doing something stupid and always using the same route).
Also, you’d need precision missiles which Russia seems to be running out of - or use close air attacks which I’m guessing are too high risk.
I don’t think intel is really the problem, it’s having weapons that can hit a moving target at range. I don’t think Russia has any missiles that can autonomously target a moving vehicle, and the flight time of a cruise missile is way too long to have any chance of hitting the target without active guidance. So you ultimately need to have a man in the loop, which means a manned aircraft or a UAV or a loitering munition. But as you say, without air superiority/suppression of air defenses, it would probably be hard for any of those things to survive as far as Western Ukraine.
They may have hypersonic cruise missiles (zircon) that could arrive in a few minutes but even if available they’re likely too few and too precious to be used on those kinds of targets.
https://twitter.com/VagrantJourno/status/1516758940561948672
https://twitter.com/VagrantJourno/status/1516758941824393223
https://twitter.com/BigBreakingNow/status/1516789850422190084?s=20&t=yaZrcHVfXqffTdMqDUmJPg
When he thought he’d have Kyiv in the bag in a few days, his initial nuclear threat scared people but the problem now is he has to escalate the threat and I’m not sure this works. It might be a more concrete threat than his “unpredictable consequences” line in his formal diplomatic note to Biden, but it’s not going to make his enemies tremble. Not now.
https://twitter.com/WayneTrackerXOM/status/1516795774704758792?s=20&t=yaZrcHVfXqffTdMqDUmJPg
https://twitter.com/Euan_MacDonald/status/1516813289937907714
Kind of makes you wonder if all that stuff about being out of ammo, surrendering within hours, and desperate pleas to 3rd parties as a final hail mary - were all a smokescreen for this operation.
Why would the border guards want to go into the plant if it was close to falling? And how could Azov have the forces to break out and rescue their comrades if the situation was really that desperate?
Also literally every single story on this made it sound like the holdouts at the steel plant where the last. Not one ever mentioned 500 border guards at the port.
I think there’s a lot of gamesmanship going on that makes it hard to really know what’s going on in Mariupol, except that it hasn’t fallen yet.
Or this:
https://twitter.com/johndunn61067/status/1516817683144134669
Now back to no planes. Goddammit.
https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1516814468080091138?t=gbiyPJk3QbErgAH2TgbfcA&s=19
https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1516816144975421440?t=WlUr-FdUM-lgw2xo3Yh4_g&s=19
Well that’s something.
US officials implied that some or maybe all of those 20 are planes that Ukraine already had but didn’t have the parts necessary to get them into the air
Thought the same thing:
Here are some airplane parts, you’ll have to add these to your inoperable landing gear wheel to l fix the aircraft and make it viable for combat.
Yeah the key on any of this stuff that comes from an official govt source is that it’s what they want the public to know and a message they want to send to the enemy - which could be anywhere from the truth, to partial truth, to technically true but misleading, to a flat out lie (Russia most of the time).
Like how we’ve been hearing that Mariupol is hours away from falling for weeks now. It could be what it looks like - the last troops desperately pleading to their own govt and any other govt for help. Or it could be coordinated with Kyiv, to lure the Russians into a trap, thinking the defenders are almost out of ammo or whatever.