An operation by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has hit “more than 40” Russian bombers at air bases “in the rear of the Russian Federation,” a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent on June 1.
“Enemy strategic bombers are burning en masse in Russia — this is the result of a special operation by the SBU,” the source said.
Video provided by the source shows what appears to be a row of heavy bomber aircraft on fire at an undisclosed location.
Judging by Russian TG, they are not exaggerating one bit.
Also rumors of a sub base getting hit, even though one can say today subs Russia has are all tracked.
I wonder about missile silos - if any of them were still operational, maybe they’ve been all sabotaged long ago (or rotted by themselves), and we didn’t know simply because it’s not as visible as burning strategic bombers in the midst of a day.
So apparently Russian regime just got more willing to negotiate.
Which may be kinda good news, because fewer troubles means more attention to each particular one, so the degree of bullshit elsewhere might fall too.
First, I am not a Russia fan or apologist.
…But the Soviets made some good shit, often with the philosophy of “big and simple,” but often well engineered, too. Soyuz has been so reliable it’s unreal, hence it sent astronauts from around the world to space for decades because nothing else was dependable enough.
They did tons of real, oldschool nuclear testing, not simulations like newer powers. They knew what they were doing.
Hence, asserting most of Russia’s warheads are duds is quite an assumption. It’s quite possible. But there’s enough of a track record for the threat to be very real.
Of which a disproportionate share was Ukrainian. Valentin Hlushko’s engine shot Gagarin into space, Sergei Korolev designed the Soyuz, and Soyuz’ successor, Zenith, is Ukrainian.
And that’s just rockets. Ukraine designed and built Russia’s only aircraft carrier, and their flagship (the Moskva), as well as the missiles that promoted it to submarine.
Ukraine also did the bulk of the heavy lifting fighting back the Nazis. And they’re certainly out-innovating and out-engineering Russia right now when it comes to drones.
That’s not to say that Russia is completely incapable and they have no scientists or engineers at all, but this equation of “The Soviets did it, so it’s Russian” is very misleading.
All true. Nevertheless, Russia is in possession of much of that now (specifically the nukes), which is most of what I really implied.
With the warheads its not an engineering issue, the fissile material simply stops being viable after a while and you can’t engineer around that, so the question is less about quality and more about if anyone ever replaced that stuff, or if it was replaced if that fissile material was of high enough quality and not say, a block of wood and a new yacht.
Not to mention the high explosives used to trigger nuclear chain reactions degrades over time as well. There are lots of parts to a nuclear weapon that must be regularly maintained/replaced for the weapon to remain viable.
I agree about older Soviet engineering, it’s a bit of a result of digital automation being less available due to domestic computer research being shot down politically in favor of copying IBM and DEC, and also having worse abilities at minimization.
Hence Soviet engineering is how you’d approach building a spacefaring civilization with a slide rule as the baseline instrument, and mostly analog components of everything. That does feel cool.
About warheads - there’s an issue of half-life with nuclear warheads, so that they “rot” is not in doubt, the question is how good the maintenance was.
Fissile material (enriched uranium and plutonium) has a long half-life.
AFAIK tritium is the biggest issue, with a half life of 12.3 years. From what I’ve read, nukes have little feeder tubes to replenish that.
Whether or not Russia’s nukes are functional is immaterial. They know that they don’t know which ones work. They also know they no longer have MAD on their end. All they can do is saber rattle with them, because if they ever try to use them, they know that there is a very good chance that the nukes will fail to detonate, for a variety of reasons, and the immediate retaliation from every other nuclear power, except China, would be the end of Russia.
Well. A lesson to everybody thinking corruption and rattling of sabers are a good combination.
Missile silos are sadly, ridiculously hardened. You may have to hit a single door with 10+ drones to get through.
Aircraft are perfect targets, since an aircraft must be light and cannot be hidden underground too easily.
Also, missile silos aren’t being used to attack Ukraine. Knocking one out would have no effect on the safety of people in Ukraine. Aircraft however, are used daily / weekly. Tangible benefit is immediate - less air raids, less missiles fired, less glide bombs dropped.
It would also be sweet if a shortage of radar planes occurred - Russia not knowing what’s happening in its airspace would allow Ukrainian long-range drones to reach where they must.
With the kind of money Putin has at his disposal, one could have underground reinforced concrete hangars even in permafrost, would cost less than those yachts or palaces or sports events.
These are all a system, I think.
But at the same time, about missile silos - they’d really do something about them first, because imagine you are a psychopath usurper thinking yourself to be some kind of princeps, and you’ve lost much of your visibility and of your long range bombers and apparently of your subs. Who knows what the people getting orders will think. What if they receive a launch order and just do that.