Thread by @PhillipsPOBrien

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are making some remarkable claims today about losses in the air war for the Russians yesterday. They claim 10 Russian aircraft down, 4 by SAMs, 4 by air to air, 2 by short range air defense. facebook.com/kpszsu/videos/…

At the same time they are claiming to have destroyed an entire regiment of Russian airborne forces, with all their equipment including tanks. (I dont speak Ukrainian but have received this summary from the trustworthy @TrentTelenko

These are extraordinary claims and as its war we have to take them with a grain of salt. However if they are even half correct two things seem to be happening.

1) the Russians are not just not winning the air war, they are losing it.
2) Some of the supposedly best troops in the Russian Army are being caught out.

We need to await validation, but these are actually unsustainable losses. The air losses would lead to the Russian Air Force having to avoid any dangerous missions, and the ground losses show an inability to mount advanced operations.

These claims validate 2 things we saw yesterday. The first is that they are speaking with great confidence about how the war is developing, with even a little disdain for the Russians (that is not a great sign by the way--overconfidence in war never good).

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1501969923811287043?s=20&t=ohWKNqMS_GDyIzIAd3pAdg

and that the Ukrainian General Staff has very little fear of Russian abilities to react in war (also a little overconfident for my tastes) such as when they openly admitted to by moving behind Russian lines.

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1502004537858695170?s=20&t=ohWKNqMS_GDyIzIAd3pAdg

btw, if anyone else knows Ukrainian and wants to comment on that video, please do.

Also, building on the claims by the Ukrainian military of such high Russian aircraft losses, there actually should be a straightforward way to see if they are at all accurate. Can the Russians maintain air operations at anything like the level of the last week.

If they were really damaged as claimed, they would for reasons of dwindling resources and pilot morale, have to cut back operations and change tactics to ‘safer’ methods of operations.

Think of what happened to the Luftwaffe in September 1940 or the US 8th AF in October 1943. In both cases when losses became unsustainable, they made significant changes.

The Germans switched to safer (for them) nighttime bombing, which was also mostly useless. The US refused to fly deep over Germany until they had proper escorts.

If the Russians don’t change something, then their losses are probably not as high as claimed. So their operational tempo over the next few days is worth watching.

Don’t really know what to make of this claim, certainly shows the Ukrainians are continuing to make rather extraordinary claims. Basically saying they have neutered almost 30% of the Russian Army’s mobile offensive power.

https://twitter.com/euromaidanpress/status/1502616371485712394

Find that very hard to believe. If so, this Russian Army is in serious trouble.