Russian special military operation in Ukraine #57

three UAVs were destroyed over the territory of the Belgorod region, fifty-seven UAVs

Broski wrote:
That's the biggest benefit to this stupid conflict, it has caused a complete collapse of the 5th column apparatchiks that exist in Russia and silenced the whiny 6th column "defeatists" that think if Putin was replaced by a clown like Navalny that Russia would be accepted by the West and become as "prosperous" as the EU or US.

If you look closer at the beginning, it seems that a missile was already hit and fly with inertion - seems spinning in the air.

First, let’s update on the Belbek base strike in Crimea. I wrote a long report last time about Russia’s failures there, but new information appears to suggest it may not have been quite as large of a failure as we thought. You see, it’s become more evident that the destroyed planes at the base were likely old part donors and already inoperable, thus not able to be scrambled out:

Satellite images confirmed: Ukraine spent ATACMS on a barrel of kerosene. Ukrainian media published satellite images of the consequences of two missile attacks on the Belbek military airfield in Sevastopol. It is alleged that two aircraft and a structure near the runway (preliminarily, a tank with jet fuel) were hit . For comparison, the satellite fixation from May 1 and May 16 is given.

However, if you compare the latest photos with the old ones from 2023, you can be convinced that both affected aircraft had been in the same place for a long time - therefore, these were long-out-of-service aircraft, taken out of service. In the photographs you can also see fake images of fighters applied to the strip to deceive the enemy.
Apart form newly surfaced photos showing old scrapped planes, the biggest piece of evidence was the discovery of satellite photos from October 2023 which appeared to show the same two planes roughly in a similar position as where they were just ‘destroyed’.
(...)

He states that the Russian base actually does have hardened aircraft shelters right next to where the Mig-31s were stationed.

And he points out another satellite photo showing that the entire base was abandoned of virtually all craft just weeks ago (just as I had reported), but oddly the two Mig-31s remained in the same position.

He concludes:

So, are the Russians really stupid? Or is something else going on? The clear possibility is that the Mig-31s were decoys designed to attract the ATACM attack. The Russians have plenty of nonfunctional Mig-31s to use as decoys. Hundreds were built in the 1980s, but they were retired in the 1990s because they were expensive to operate and had a limited service life.

The Mig-31s presently in service are produced by refurbishing the old ones at the Sokol Aviation Plant in Nizhny Novgorod. The refurbishing process adds about 1000 hours of service life to the planes. Now, 1000 hours is 200 5-hour patrols, so it’s easy to see that lifetime-expired Mig-31s could be available for use as decoys in addition to old, non-updated ones.

That being said, while it’s true that likely no truly valuable planes were destroyed, the attack did still penetrate the AD and blew up a large fuel warehouse right behind where the Mig-31s were. Also, the S-400 system was still hit.

ALAMO wrote:Taking down SCALP :

https://t.me/SIL0VIKI/87923

If you look closer at the beginning, it seems that a missile was already hit and fly with inertion - seems spinning in the air.

And he points out another satellite photo showing that the entire base was abandoned of virtually all craft just weeks ago (just as I had reported), but oddly the two Mig-31s remained in the same position.

the attack did still penetrate the AD and blew up a large fuel warehouse right behind where the Mig-31s were.