Russian special military operation in Ukraine #40

Was the Mig 31 there to escort the Su-24?

What type of Su-24 was it... they have electronic intelligence gathering Su-24MPs that might have been there to electronically examine those F-35s...

I doubt that. Camouflaging a tank column makes sense, especially when NATO is using PGMs to hit these columns.

No level of camouflage will help in some cases... vehicles driving down a road for instance... or a vehicle disguised as a bush in the middle of an open field.

I think it was a Greek commander that commented after one HATO exercise that it would be easy to wipe out his attacking force... just shoot all the bushes...

US released the drone video. Pretty clear to me that Su-27 harrassed it.

Approaching Russian territory with its transponder turned off means it is a threat to air traffic.... even more so because the airspace of Crimea is contested airspace if you believe the US it is Ukrainian airspace and as such is a war zone.

The US lost lots of aircraft testing Soviet airspace... this one didn't have any people in it... so it would be like blowing up pipes but with less environmental damage...

It indeed looks like the propellor was clipped by the SU27, in the second pass. One of the blades was bend on the tip, you can see it in the last frames. I don't see a serious disturbance in the flight path though; the MQ-9 stays surprisingly stable but maybe this caused a serious balance issue in the propellor.

The US has said publicly they see Crimea as Ukrainian territory and are supplying Kiev with all sorts of weapons and equipment including drones, with no transponder going Russia has no way of knowing if this is a US drone or a Kiev suicide drone... ramming it makes sense.

It would take a few days for things to go through the clearance process, as multiple people and departments need to give the ok, you can't just go "This is okay now, release it"

It just takes a person near the top to say release it and it will be released.

That was not intentional, and afik the pilot of the chinese plane died.

The Western air forces all have a long history of flying places they are not welcome and their map reading and ability to stay in international airspace is rather poor.

Would say it is “ the last throw of dice “

It is going to be a massive clumsy charge by Zulu warriors against machine guns, artillery, and air power.

Last Orc offensives succeeded by Starlink communications and HATO recon finding areas in the front line very thinly defended where they sent large numbers of barely trained conscripts to burn up Russian ammo and keep their guns busy with the follow up better trained guys moved forward as the Russian forces retreated.

This time around the Russians have more troops and more artillery and air power that is rather more ready for such things...

We have seen how quickly the Russian forces have adapted and changed force structures and tactics and the Orcs have been talking about the big Spring offensive for quite some time.

RF UR-77 clears out ukrainian fortification near Kremmenaya

Wow... that was clever... normally a UR-77 launches a rocket like an AT-3 that drags out a great big long explosive charge in front of the vehicle... normally the charge is attached to a line and the line is pulled to straighten the line charge which is then detonated to blow a 6-7m wide clear path through a minefield for other vehicles to drive through, but they just sent it like a massive artillery shot at a ground position and blew it up... awesome.

Next time a Global Hawk is over the Black Sea, they should send a Tu-160 at max speed over the thing. If it's too high, a squadron of MiG-31s.

Just close the airspace as not safe for international air traffic because it is a war zone and the Kiev side uses drones to attack Russian targets so any drones spotted in the area with transponders turned off are justified targets.

I would like to see the Russian footage of the drone encounter from the SU-27s perspective.

I doubt the Russians will bother to release any footage, that drone is not longer a problem...

If you look at the two videos provided you can see the second one where the collision supposedly occurs the Flanker is turning and is not flying straight to do a fly past which suggests to me that the drone is turning too... otherwise the flanker could simply fly up from behind and fly past.

It is a war zone and the US openly admits it is openly helping Russias enemy and Kiev has already said it would attack Russia including Crimea so anything, drones, manned aircraft or anything that is HATO or Kiev owned should expect to get shot down with no apology needed... just basic common sense.

US said it was OK with Kiev attacking Russian territory including Crimea and is offering Kiev new gear all the time...

These US drones are able to be armed and the intercepting aircraft can deal with such intruders as they see fit as far as I am concerned...

For all Russia knows these drones might be controlled from Kiev.

The Kiev regime is on its third army. The one they had in February of 2022 is gone. They have not had the chance to train
their freshest meat to the standards of the original batch. The quality of their fighting was not great at the beginning but
is much worse now. Even if Mercouris and others scoff at this fact, the Kiev regime has been using human wave tactics.
Not the cheesy charges of men at the front line as in WWI by the precious, advanced western Europeans, but in larger
pulses such as we see at Bakhmut/Artyomovsk.

Every single "victory" by the Kiev regime has been through the use of hordes of soldiers. Nowhere have Russian forces
retreated through defeat. All the bleating to the contrary notwithstanding.

when does the mud dry up in Ukraine, late march, middle of April, beginning of May? I have barely seen anything on the map that has shown the progression of red. I just want Bakhmut to be done with before Ukraine launches another offensive from the possibility of the AFU breaking out of the cauldron.