It’s great watching this in real time.
More and more strikes are hitting air defence targets making it harder to defend against meaning more strikes succeeding.
yup. there’s no quick replacements coming for those BUKs, and they’re EXPENSIVE as fuuuuck. And russia may not even possess the tech required to replace them at this point.
And russia may not even possess the tech required to replace them at this point.
Even more likely after they blew up Russia’s 2nd largest microchip facility last week or whenever it was.
Also losing the air war becomes a very slippery slope very quickly, the basic strategic mechanisms at play heavily favor the winner winning even harder the more they win.
A lone air defense system is just a target, it only becomes a counter when it is integrated in a network of supporting air defenses and other elements.
Once the sky is full of Ukrainian drones hunting down anything that dares to turn on a radar or present itself as an obstacle to Ukraine’s relentless long range drone strikes, from directions Russia cannot even begin to predict where from… not only has Russia fallen behind in a crucial element of the fight, they have been kicked out of the air war and had the door locked behind them so they can’t get back in.
Another point, the more that drones are used to take out air defenses, the closer Ukrainian aviation can get to lob glide bombs on Russian positions, which also has a massive non-linear effect upon the frontline calculus.
My bet is that as the russians are doing absolutely everything to pretend all is a o kay (remember the kremlin narrative is that they ate “unstoppable”), the first sensed weakness is actually the start of the downfall. Recently Ukraine explodes an air defense radar a day it seems, that is just not sustainable at all, and Ukraine doesn’t seem to be slowing down, more going faster and faster.
Good luck Ukraine, slava Ukraine!!
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
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It appears that one potential goal is to take out the air defence, show that they can destroy the Kerch bridge but leave it intact, then deny fresh water into Crimea (it comes in from the west). This puts them under siege, with a path out still, and a deadline.
Just targeting them gives Russia propoganda and makes the Russian people think Ukraine is evil and resist them. That’s not what you want. Forcing them to leave still makes them scared and costs them money, and it forces them to spread the message wherever they end up. This is a much smarter move.
There are still Ukrainian citizens living on most of the occupied territories, including Crimea. Burning down the whole place, unfortunately, isn’t an option as they’re effectively hiding behind hostages.
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Slight problem with your plan, it’s rather difficult to differentiate a persons nationality or their allegiance from a drone.
There are many, many “ethnically Russian” people in crimea whos families have lived there since long before the soviet union. Thats entirely different from the “oh look how cheap these recently unoccupied houses are!” people
Those are either Ukrainian, Crimean Tatars or descendants of russian imperial colonialists. So no, I don’t mean those people, I mean actual Ukrainians and Tatars being held hostage
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Delulu take tbh
This is a disgusting idea
Does it matter if the Russians moved there before or after Russia captured Crimea from Ukraine?
Yes and don’t sanitize your language. Russia stole the land through violent invasion and didnt even have the balls to do it openly and had to send in their unmarked mercenaries. Prior to Russian invasion, Russians who moved to Crimea immigrated and became Ukrainian. After Russia invaded, illegal Russian colonists (re: settlers) moved in and stole Ukrainian land.
This is all going to be over within six months one way or another. The dynamics of this might factor in somewhere along the line but there is a 0% chance that we get to a year from now in the same state of affairs that exist today.
I thought the same last year, and the year before and the year before…
And before that, I didn’t think Russia would be willing and or dumb enough to invade.
Why would you think that? Ukraine is doing okay now but they have a lot of ground to win. Russia has made it clear they don’t care about the cost to then and so they will grind on so long as they have any land, and maybe longer
Yeah but everything is in the toilet for russia, and they can’t claim anything else, so I’d just dismiss what the kremlin says.
It was until very recently. Nice windfall from oil price spike should give them plenty of funds
That won’t last and it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they’d need. Also, that is just economic, russia is on a death spiral everywhere else too.
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Total Military & Security Budget: For 2026, Russia has budgeted approximately 16.84 trillion rubles ($217 billion) for “national defense” and “national security.”
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Daily Estimated Spending: This equates to roughly $595 million per day spent on the military and internal security apparatus combined.
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Daily Windfall: Russia is earning an additional $150 million to $550 million per day in fossil fuel revenues compared to its February averages.
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Price Advantage: The global shortage has allowed Russia to narrow the “sanctions discount” on its Urals crude. Urals is currently trading around $62 per barrel, comfortably above the Kremlin’s budget target of $59.
The Strait will be economically unviable for 2-5 years minimum now they’ve laid mines, and their profits are only going to increase as Europe inevitably has to start buying more from them.
8 (potential) mines and you jump to conclusions…
2-5 years? Why not 1 to 100?
Believing the russian states numbers too lol!
And europe “has” to buy oil from russia, you sure believe the kremlin propaganda.
Lol
You don’t need 100 mines to stop trade; you only need the possibility of one.
Full minesweeping operation across contested waters: 6–12 months minimum under favorable conditions
Insurance markets require a sustained incident-free period: 6–12 months after clearance
2 years is a floor estimate. 2-5 the likely range, it could go higher. Proxy actors funded by Russia retain the capability to re-mine at any point, restarting the clock
If the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, the US is the only supplier with enough scale to even attempt to fill the gap. To get that gas, Europe would have to outbid Asia. This will result in energy rationing & industrial shutdown.
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