Posted on 02/23/2022 10:13:36 AM PST by tlozo
While Russian ground forces have been massing for months in areas around Ukraine... the same cannot be said for Russian Aerospace Forces...
In February, Russian military aviation finally appears to be tentatively shuffling dozens of warplanes into Belarus, southern Russia, and even on the Baltic and Mediterranean seas in advance of a potential combat operation...
Belarus
30,000 troops from Russia's faraway Eastern Military District are currently deployed in Belarus...
brought air support with them too — flown from over 4,000 miles away from Kharabovsk and Primorskiy Krai on the eastern end of Russia near Japan, the Koreas, and China...
That notably included 15 Su-25SM Frogfoot jets of the 18th Shturmovik Regiment, which deployed to Luninets Airbase, located just 35 miles north of Ukraine's border.
A week later, the number more than doubled to 32 Su-25s.
These armored ground-attack aircraft are akin to the US A-10 Thunderbolt: highly effective at swooping down to devastate vehicular columns...
Russia earlier deployed Su-35S Flanker fighters of its 23rd Fighter Regiment to Baranovichi airbase southwest of Minsk...
Sea of Azov
Primorskiy-Akhtarsk airbase, located on Russia's coast on the Sea of Azov, is well situated to project airpower against the opposite Ukrainian coastline including the oft-targeted city of Mariupol just 75 miles northwest...
Ordinarily only hosting the Su-25 jets of the 960th Attack Aviation Regiments, satellite photos recently revealed the deployment of ten supersonic Su-34 Fullback bombers.
Though long-ranged aircraft, the duck-billed Su-34s will be able to carry heavier weapons loads for shorter-range strikes — up to 17 tons of bombs and missiles...
Two additional larger Su-34 units are locally based nearby:
36x Su-34s in the 559th Bomber Regiment at Morozovsk (110 miles east of Luhansk) 24x Su-34s in the 47th Bomber Regiment at Voronezh (110 miles north of eastern Ukraine)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Looks like right now is a great time for China to Make Siberia Chinese Again!
Go for it, Xi!!!
Russia offering bigger discounts on oil than reported just a couple of days ago. Now $7 discount. Ouch.
“Russia’s flagship crude was once again offered at deeper discount in Europe amid tensions over Ukraine.
Vitol Group offered a 100,000 tons of the nation’s Urals oil for delivery to Rotterdam at $7.25 a barrel less than Dated Brent, Europe’s benchmark for physical cargo transactions. There were no bids in a window organized by S&P Global Platts.”
What army prepares for invasion, without simultaneously planning for its air forces? I guess they weren't ready to invade last week after all....
As the Russian population decreases over the decades, they may have to sell the eastern part of the country to China.
The stuff piles higher and deeper every day.
The innocents of Ukraine do not deserve this...
NYT said Biden knew in October that they were gonna invade.
This whole thing has been scripted out for months in advance by Putin and the Kremlin.
Reading Russian media sources, I think Putin may conclude now that he has enough Russian public opinion support to attack the rest of Ukraine.
LPR/DPR has mobilized its military force, prohibiting all military-age males from leaving and telling the civilian population to evacuate into Russia.
Putin has been evacuating these refugees not just to the neighboring Rostov province in Russia but to cities all over Russia.
I’ve been wondering why he was making such a costly and complicated logistical effort to widely distribute the refugees, and I think it may be primarily for PR reasons. The Russian media has had a constant drumbeat of Ukrainian “genocide” and atrocities against ethnic Russians and when these refugees show up in Russian cities there is an outpouring of support for these unfortunate people and it helps validate the Russian media claims that Ukraine has victimized these people, thus bolstering public opinion for an attack on Ukraine by Putin.
I nevertheless still think that there will be more false flags attacks in LPR/DPR to additionally try to bolster Russian public opinion to support an attack by Putin, perhaps something really spectacular.
This may be quickly be over with this large scale invasion. Not a crawl.
You do not deploy en masse without the intention of going ahead. I’d hate to be one of those poor soldiers sleeping in those cold tents day after day. Morale couldn’t be that good. Then you have too go to war-who wants to?
Looking at the numbers on Wiki the current Russian army is nowhere near the Cold War behemoth. If numbers are to be believed there is currently around 60-65% of Russian ground force deployed around Uke. The same source gives Uke GF as around 165K. Enough if correctly handled to prevent a rapid takeover of Ukraine. Of course I know very little if anything of the quality of the troops and leadership on both sides. If the Ukie troops are of a quality of say the current Indian forces the Russkies could be in for a bad time.
Also, gotta be a lot of covid going around among the Russian forward-deployed troops.
Normally, young people with healthy immune systems will shrug off covid but sleeping in tents in winter with army rations with worrying uncertainty about what is going to happen is no doubt taking its toll on soldiers’ immune systems.
The plethora of anti-tank and AA missiles the West has sent to Ukraine will have a dampening effect on the morale of the Russian troops.
Because it’s all fun and games to invade someone else’s country right up to the moment the molten copper slugs tear through your body.
Business Insider. LOL!
Russia sure didn’t go with the element of surprise with this.
“Russia sure didn’t go with the element of surprise with this.”
LOL.
You usually don’t tell your enemy 3 months in advance of your intentions.
5.56mm
Morale couldn’t be that good.
—
Russian Army moral is never good and the conscripts moral is even worse.
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