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Originally Posted by WCW Nitro
Anyone have any insight as to why the Russian Air Force is not more involved?
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I don't know where you're seeing that the Russian Air Force isn't involved. From a ground strike perspective, they're pretty active from what I've seen.
I think though in terms of Russian casualties in the air, that they've been surprised at both how well the Ukrainians have used their limited anti-aircraft weapons. Also I think the Russians probably were pretty cocky about fighting an airforce that mainly had Cold War aircraft. That underestimation has cost them dearly.
In terms of on the ground, I wonder if the Russians underestimated how good the Javelin Anti-Tank system really is.
Just reading up on what's happening in terms of casualties, on the ground it sounds like a lot of the casualties on the Russian side are composed of T-72 main battle tanks and maybe a mix of T-80's. I think the question is where are the more advanced Russian Weapon systems. I haven't seen any reports of T-90 casualties, the Russian's have a small number of T-14's I had expected to see reports of them popping up.
I'm a little skeptical of casualty reports in any war to be honest, but one thing is for sure, just due to the fact that the Russian Army hasn't surrounded and laid seige to Kyiv and their advances seem to have been blunted else where points to a pretty stiff resistance.
I'm a little surprised that elements of the Ukraine Airforce are still flying as well as their fighter compliment is composed of about 30 Cold War era Mig 29's and 30 Cold War Era Su-27's. Now both were really good aircraft in their day, but I really expected the Ukraine Airforce not to fair very well against the newer Russian Aircraft.
If I was to class the reaction of the Russian Commanders on the scene it would probably be shock and surprise, but we've only seen 1/3 of the available Russian Forces so far with the rest held in reserve. If this becomes a war of attrition which its starting to look like, its still going to be very hard for the Ukrainian army and airforce to not wear down.
I expect that the Russian timeline has really been knocked on its axis and that's why we are seeing a lot more airstrikes and missile strikes into population centers as the Russians try to go after Ukrainian moral.
Just my 2 cents.