The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, but preliminary estimates suggest Russia may have lost at least $150 million worth of irreplaceable aircraft in a single day.
The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, but preliminary estimates suggest Russia may have lost at least $150 million worth of irreplaceable aircraft in a single day.
Tbf I’ve seen a lot of talk about Russia’s imminent economic collapse which would render them unable to sustain the war for the past 3 or so years as well. Like Ukraine being hammered by Russian missiles, this incident will be costly but the war will drag on.
The collopse has never been something that will stop the war overnight. They ecconomy is collapsing, but it will play out over decades and the war can drag on a long time with a collapsing ecconomy.
With the USSR it was kind of all at once. Or rather, they managed to hide it until the very end.
Russia is less susceptible to morale failure than more liberal countries, and can stumble on in zombie mode, a decaying corpse of a nation-state reanimated by force, terror and rhetoric, at least until enough of its limbs fall off to render it structurally incapable of shambling.