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Comment by splendor_spoon | Hacker News Reader

It’s my understanding that the Russian air campaign in Ukraine was rather unsuccessful so they ended up pulling their jets back.

> By June 2022, Russia had not achieved air superiority, having lost around 165 of its combat aircraft over Ukraine which amounted to approximately 10% of its frontline combat strength. Western commentators noted the qualitative and quantitative advantages the Russian Air Force had over its Ukrainian counterpart, but attributed the poor performance of Russian aviation to the extensive ground-based anti-aircraft capabilities of the Ukrainians.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_warfare_in_the_Russia...

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They're safekeeping their jets in case of a NATO attack, using them to launch missiles from the Caspian. They've also moved some strategic bombers to Olenya airbase in the Kola peninsula, near Finland and Norway. Russian doctrine is based on multiple layers of anti aerial defense.

What Russia has is lots of Cold War era equipment that they are sending into Ukraine. It'll do, as they don't put a price on human life. It's a war of attrition at this point. The moment we give up on Ukraine is the moment they start winning.

That's not infinite either. They are already starting to run low on tanks and artillery. But yeah, this war of attrition has to go for some time before they run out of it to the critical level. So they put a lot of effort into pushing "negotiations" since they know they'll lose if this will continue. Good thing is that most understand it well and no one is buying their "negotiations" whining.

They're not yet running low on equipment but on human resource to crew and supply their equipment, according to the WSJ.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tattered-and-bandaged-russian-p...

They started deploying increasing number of attack helicopters as a substitute for artillery that has been decimated in bigger numbers than usual in the recent battles. So they are either running low on it, or at least can't restore it fast enough that they risk expensive helicopters that they now also started constantly losing.

The trend is very bad for them either way.

They're using the attack helicopers against Ukrainian tanks that are probing their Southern front. They've already destroyed several tanks and quite a few Western vehicles. I doubt they're using choppers as a substitute for artillery, it doesn't make sense to do that.

https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/ukraine-plays-light-brigade-wi...

They usually avoid using them because they have very limited supply and can't make new ones fast. Now they are losing one a day at least. That's a lot.

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