I bet the 3-4 Su-34s Russia has in Syria have (or will) go home shortly.
They’re down 15 as of today, which is probably most of its fleet. They only had about 30 of the 34M operational. Assume a 50% flight readiness status, and things are getting thin there.
Such a waste. Putin is an idiot. Russia only real enemies are China and Muslim hordes.
“Russia only real enemies are China and Muslim hordes.”
I’ve been following a couple of Russian YouTubers some of whom have recently fled from Russia this month. They think what frightens Putin is having governments on his border that are elected and not autocrats. That’s his number one concern. The next is he’s paranoid, a holdover from the Soviet times when some of them truly believed the West wanted to overrun Russia like the Nazis. A third issue is his power was getting diffused among a lot of others and the war allowed him to bring it all back under his own thumb. Notice he’s also killing the former power brokers about one every three weeks. He’s giving their power and money to people he thinks will be more useful to him.