While Russian pilots were managing to support land operations in the south of Ukraine, they were doing so “without decisive operational effect,” the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily intelligence update on Monday.
To compensate, Russia was sending adapted free-fall bombs into Ukrainian territory. However, these had “yet to demonstrate consistent accuracy,” it added.
“Over the summer, Russian tactical combat aircraft have typically carried out over 100 sorties a day, but these are almost always restricted to operating over Russian-controlled territory due to the threat from Ukrainian air defenses,” the update said.
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Neither Russia nor Ukraine has been able to gain air superiority in the war so far despite Russia’s vastly larger air force. But a military expert previously told Insider that the “advantage is with defense.”
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On paper they’re well equipped. But Russia is a country that basically operates on corruption, everyone is on the take, so by the time the resources finally get to the military personnel they’ve gone through several thieving hands and pretty much everything of value has disappeared. And you could say that many Western democracies are equally as corrupt, but they’re not, they may skim a little off the top but they’re not stupid enough to steal from their own military.
No one tells Putin this of course because they’re terrified of him, so he starts operating on the assumption that the military have certain resources that are simply not present.
People really don’t appreciate the depth of the corruption and grift in Russia. In the military (and not just there, mind you) every level participates in it: they sell the gear they’re assigned if they ever get it in the first place, lie about the number of people in command so they’ll get a higher budget which will get embezzled, lie about training their unit because training is hard work and they might not actually have the personnel for it, steal from either the others in their unit or from the ones under their command, and so on and so on. Add to that the absolutely insane violence they subject each other to that kills and drives to suicide hundreds per year (dedovshchina) and it paints an extremely Russian picture. It’s a great and developed country on paper, but there’s a reason why so many countries surrounding them hate their guts and thinks they’re generally untrustworthy and violent
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