Ukrainian media is reporting the shoot down of a VKS A-50 AEW&C and a Il-22 Coot ELINT plane over the Sea of Azov.
Russian signals intelligence warnings shut down the Kerch Bridge earlier in the day, thinking the PSU sorties were a Su-24 strike.
🧵 1/ rbc.ua/rus/news/zsu-p…
I think it likely the PSU gave off the signals of a Su-24 Storm Shadow strike and actually sent out Su-27's hunting, tricked out with 100(+) km range AIM-120C's.
Think of the WW2 "Operation Vengeance" P-38 raid that killed Adm. Yamamoto.
It would give a single Ukrainian PSU Su-27 a chance to break within 100 km and blarf a volley of lock on after launch AMRAAM against these converted cargo & airliner planes.
5/
The US fighter pilots don't like 'pitbulling' the AMRAAM when they "Fox 3."
That is, firing a AIM-120 seeker in the lock on after launch (LOAL) with missile seeker doing autonomous homing at range.
This is because there tends to be more US fighters than enemy fighters.
6/
To use ~2008 fighter pilot slang:
"Shake a pitbull up in a sack and when you let out. It's goes for the first thing it sees.
In which case, you have a 'mad dog' event."
A PSU Su-27 fighting one on many doesn't have this issue.
7/
Ukraine could only pull this AMRAAM Ambush once.
They decided to make a high operational risk/high operational pay off poker bet and won the pot.
8/8 End
@threadreaderapp unroll please.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
USN flag ranks & their staffers have been fighting the idea of distant economic blockade of China tooth an nail as a response to China invading Taiwan for 30 years.
They really don't want a recent precedent of a successful blockade...
...to prevent their Carrier fleet Pickett's charge into the South China Sea.
Specifically distant blockade as a strategy against China makes having/regaining 100 Cold War era
2/3
...frigates and destroyer tenders supporting them on distant blockade stations outside the 2nd Island chain, "budget relevant" for a military strategy of conducting three years of blockade enforcement.
I was calling out two dead for every three Russian wounded in Sept 2022 as the more realistic Russian casualty ratio in Ukraine because it was taking more than 24 hours to get to the equivalent of a battalion aid station.
"Oil revenue collapsed to roughly 5% of the national budget, down from 32% the prior year. Taxes increased over 60%. Food prices climbed at least 50%. ATMs across major cities are running out of cash."
Since Clausewitz, the West recognized "war as an extension of politics."
The corollary of that is "politics is an extension of money."
Iran doesn't have any money, thanks to hyper-inflation and now an 84% reduction in oil revenue.
2/
The failed January 2026 Iranian uprising kicked off because hyperinflation caused massive food insecurity that required the mass murder of 30,000 (+) Iranian protestors to suppress.
The 12-day war and the current one have made Iranian hyper-inflation far worse.
3/
The Chief of Air Staff RAAF 12 months ago gave a lecture trashing HAS as a bad idea and how "dispersal is better."
Dispersal didn't help USAF E-3G's in Saudi Arabia because they had nowhere to disperse too.
Places like Italy are politically off limits. 2/
The RAAF CoS appeared to believe that every HAS was like the cheapest Iraqi HAS that we could crack with a single BLU-109/B, not the serious HAS needing multiple BLU-109/B down the same hole.
All of China's HAS built since 1991 are of the 2nd variety or are 'super-hardened' deep tunnels.
War is a question of interests, not legality. Iran with, it's support of the October 7th attack, kicked off an existential war with Israel for the latter to prevent Iran from getting the A-bomb.
Israel won't survive as a nation after three Hiroshima class nukes...
- riding ballistic warheads in a saturation missile attack - slam into its major cities.
The Trump Administration agreed with Israel on Iranian nukes both in the 12-day war and with the current war.
2/
The Iranian use of a space launcher as an ICBM against Diego Garcia made the current Iran war an existential one for the USA, given the EMP threat Iran represents to the unhardened American power grid.
Imagine the population of the American west - especially Las Vegas! -
3/
Anyone claiming Iran will survive long term without explaining how Iran recovers from currency hyperinflation IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR marks themselves as incompetent yo-yo's.
Hand waving, "They will use ForEx from oil and barter instead of the rial" is ignoring what happened during January 2026.
I dare anyone to do a word search at that link for the text strings "hyperinflation," "Rial" or "foreign exchange."
None are present.
2/
The Iran questions at hand are as follows: 1. Will the Regime fall via a controlled air campaign driven collapse, or 2. After a protracted Syria style civil war with 6 or 7 figure #'s murdered by IRGC thugs, & 3. Will Iran destroy the Gulf's power & H2O supply while dying?
3/3