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.
This goes out to all my fans over at .ml that banned me for laughing at their idea that “Ukraine’s military is days away from collapsing:”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
deep breath
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Are they still mumbling about 3 days till Ukraine collapses like they do since checks watch February 24th 2022?
Not mumbling, CAWing. But yes, as of a week ago, they are.
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.
The strike took out fully one third of Russia’s strategic bomber force.
No, that is not a typo.
It’s even worse than that.
They have roughly 120 *total bombers. Meaning a chunk of these are not air worthy air frames, and are just kept on for parts.
This very well could have crippled 40+ percent of all of Russias strategic bombers.
It’s never going to stop until you’ve shown Putin what his insides look like.
there are plenty of others in Russia just as evil ready to take over.
Irreplaceable is important here… billions is the $ amount given but the replacement cost probably a multiple of that if even possible.
Copycat parts probably have to be sourced from China at inflated prices, or salvaging crucial components from its spares or manufacturing using whatever remaining workforce Russia still has as they send their young boys to the front line, driving up the prevailing military factory wages. So it’s going to cost a lot more than $100M for Russia to make a $100M plane.
Finally… progress.
