At the very end, you can even see how the bombers were hit: a drone strikes the right wing of a Tu-95, causing the internal fuel tanks to catch fire and spill burning fuel. The wing then breaks off and collapses.
Why were they loaded with fuel?
Could also just be fuel vapors in the tanks going off too. Do bears have rigid tanks? In WW2 there was a big difference in survival between planes that did vs ones with bladders that collapsed as fuel was consumed.
From another article (although maybe journalist is making shit up):
The attacks that went after the heart of Russia's strategic [bomber] capabilities and one arm of its nuclear deterrent should serve as a global wake-up call.
Here's a primer on how these things work in Russia.
You can be as careful as you want, if they decide they want confrontation with the US, they'll make up a reason.
If they don't feel confrontation is in their best interest, you can hit Moscow with a Tomahawk and, magically, no one will notice anything but a clapping sound.
That is true, but they also perceive interests that can result in confrontations, for very real reasons.
They were nuclear-capable bombers that have regularly been used to attack Ukraine with conventional weapons (mostly cruise missiles.)
> Also if they are part of Russia's strategic military assets, then wouldn't Russia wonder if the US was a secret puppetmaster?
Increasing distrust between Putin and the Trump Administration would also be a coup for Ukraine, but, no, I don't think that's a real threat here.
No, it's almost as if Ukraine has a good reason to blow up the planes that airstrike them.
In practice, Ukraine has significantly reduced Russia’s _capacity_ for such aggression with this move. Russia only has a limited number of working bombers, and they’re irreplaceable.
They also have a pattern of engaging in massive attacks right before major diplomatic events.
Russia and Ukraine have peace discussions scheduled for June 2 so Ukraine probably (and apparently correctly) anticipated Russia would be loading up for a bombing campaign the night before.
Would assume that drones do not drop cumulative ammo, but the shrapnel ones. Those tires in theory should have protected from smaller pieces flying around causing a mess of a damage.
Russian media reports of 2-4 planes being destroyed while others are damaged. Think this dumb cheap hack actually helped a lot in minimizing the effectiveness of the strike.
Also, I don’t know why you would consider the reports in russian media. There’s more than 4 planes being destroyed on video.
The proven historical rule of thumb is take ukrainian reports, take russian reports, and the truth is in the middle. You'd have to question your own sanity to trust numbers from either side blindfoldingly
No it isn't. Russia's reports are complete fabrications.
Source? (Kyiv was agitating for Western aid in 2022. It would be odd for them to be downplaying the threat.)
[1] https://www-pravda-com-ua.translate.goog/articles/2022/12/19...
However, there’s this one weirdo who held official position (if I’m not mistaken) yet he was spilling similar nonsense for … well, he may still do that, I’m not aware. He’s this infamous Mr Arestovych, all I’m aware is him pushing Russian narratives these days and not holding any official position these days. I’ve heard him being even sanctioned for treason-like something, but I’m really not following him much to tell more.
That’s who came to my head first, as he’s quite infamous for this ‘Russia will fall within 2…3 weeks.’
The real marker is immediate numbers. I bet even Russians yet to find out how many aircrafts have they irrecoverably lost, however we get numbers reported as if they are confirmed.
Cheap
Sure. But the solution isn't to interpolate Russian and Ukraininan claims, as the former have been proven time and again to be complete fabrications. Instead, a good M.O. is to take Ukraininan claims with a grain of salt until corroborated by either open-source or third-party analysis.
Arrogance. My Diamond Star stays fuelled. But I’m not committing imbecilic war crimes.
I suspect the definition of front line has changed with drones.
kinda risky to be anywhere around them due to secondary explosion risk