Ukraine’s intelligence directorate said one of its drones severely damaged, if not destroyed, a stealth fighter Sukhoi Su-57 of the Russian Air Force at Akhtubinsk airport, in southern Russia, 580 km from the border between Russia and Ukraine.
If true, it would be a surprising blow to Russian air power. The Russian Air Force has acquired only about twenty examples of the supersonic twin-engine Su-57, Russia’s answer to the American Lockheed Martin F-22 stealth fighter.
Nuclear weapons, the United States ready to increase the warheads: here is the answer to Putin’s challenge
Fighter destroyed, a humiliation for Moscow
The Su-57s are unproven and have never flown in combat. If Ukraine did indeed destroy a Su-57 during Saturday’s drone raid, it is not only a humiliation for the Russians, but could be a harbinger of further humiliations to come.
The fact that the Ukrainians can hit a stealth fighter nearly 400 miles from the front line of Russia’s broader war against Ukraine strongly implies that Russian air defenses are so scattered by Ukraine’s growing drone campaign that they cannot protect all the Kremlin’s most valuable assets.
It is worth noting that, around the same time that a Ukrainian drone was supposedly heading towards that parked Su-57, another Ukrainian drone was targeting a Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-22M bomber at Mozdok air base in the Southern Russia, 450 miles from the front line.
Ukraine, Kiev destroys the most advanced Russian fighter for the first time
Destroyed fighter, satellite images
It is difficult to confirm the Ukrainian intelligence directorate’s claim that it hit a stealth fighter. Yes, the agency provided what they insisted were satellite images before and after the attack. “The images show that on June 7 the Su-57 was intact,” the management said, “and on the 8th there were cracks from the explosion and characteristic fire spots caused by fire damage near it.”
However, the images are grainy and could be manipulated. It should be borne in mind that officials in Kiev routinely exaggerate the damage that Ukrainian forces inflict on the Russian Air Force. Ukraine’s defense ministry claims to have destroyed more than 350 Russian planes in the 28 months of the wider war, but independent analysts have verified only about 80 planes destroyed.
The best reason to believe the Ukrainian agency’s claim may be that the unofficial Russian Fighterbomber channel on Telegram admitted there was shrapnel damage to an Su-57.
If the Ukrainians are not lying or exaggerating and did indeed hit a Su-57, the loss would represent only the second stealth warplane a country has lost in combat in the four decades since the US Air Force deployed the very first stealth aircraft, the Lockheed Martin F-117.
In 1999, an enterprising Serbian air defense battery anticipated the flight path of an F-117 and shot down the jet while it was flying a mission to support NATO’s intervention in the Kosovo war. The F-117 pilot ejected.
If the Ukrainians didn’t hit a Su-57 this weekend, they may have their chance in the near future. Ukraine is building new long-range attack drones faster than Russia can deploy additional air defense systems to protect the growing list of targets the drones can hold at risk.
With too few radars and surface-to-air missile batteries to defend every headquarters, factory, oil refinery and air base, the Russians face difficult choices. The Ukrainian drone attacks “force Russia to review its air defense assets,” noted Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army general.
It’s possible that this reassessment left that Su-57 unprotected just long enough for an explosive drone to hit it. And it’s possible that other stealth fighters, as well as other expensive weapons, are also exposed.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Read the full article at
The messenger
