I’ll make this short and sweet, but I HOPE it’s something Zelensky makes a big deal about during his discussions with Trump. For all the tough talk we all know figured Trump will instinctively bow in submission to his puppet master next week when they meet in Hungary. However, Putin’s once feared army failed to take over Ukraine. It’s air force supposedly fared better but even before Ukraine got a squadron of F-16s Russia was cautious about risking its prized fighter jets over Ukrainian airspace. Now we learn they’ve just shot down one of their own in the skies over occupied Crimea!
This short article from Dagens.com US explains what happened. If you’ve continued paying attention to the war in Ukraine like me, then you know how Ukraine has developed the ability to match and sometimes better Russian drone warfare. Russia has grown increasingly dependent on foreign suppliers for drones for it’s attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine gets them from other countries too BUT it’s developed its own ability to manufacture drones. Good ones, and they are putting some real hurt on Russia.
Ukraine has developed an ability to strike ever deeper into Russia at both strictly military targets but also critical war infrastructure like weapons manufacturing plants, oil storage facilities and pipelines, major rail lines and roads Russia needs to move troops and equipment to eastern and southern Ukraine. However as I indicated Russia has occupied Crimea for over ten years. It’s part of Ukraine. Everyone but Russia and its handful of allies say so and Ukraine wants it back. That means attacking Russian forces/targets in Crimea and Ukraine launched a major drone strike.
Russia deployed weapons to shoot down the drones just like Ukraine does when Russia attacks CIVILIAN targets. That can and often does include fighter jets. While Russia is fearful of risking what fighters it has over the skies of Ukraine it doesn’t control (IOW most of Ukraine) they figure Crimea is their territory. So they deployed fighters to shoot down drones. I’m sure some drones were destroyed by Russian fighter jets. However Russia managed to shoot down one of their own freaking fighter jets! Of course they don’t want to admit it but too much open source reporting indicates the massive screwup did in fact happen:
Russian air defense forces destroyed their own Su-30SM fighter jet over Crimea while responding to a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks, according to Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk.
“They were repelling Ukrainian attacks so actively that they ended up shooting down their own aircraft over Crimea,” Pletenchuk said during a broadcast on Apostrof TV on October 17.
What’s an air force version of Keystone Kops? One might feel sympathy if the pilot died but overall it’s something to mock. Yes, it was nighttime but how bad is Russia’s management of air battles that they can’t keep their pilots from shooting down other Russians? How bad have things gotten? While you might snort in laughter over what happened over Crimea the linked article also states Russia damned near shot down a CIVILIAN aircraft approaching MOSCOW thinking it might be a Ukrainian drone. It wouldn’t be the first time Russia has mistakenly shot down a civilian airliner. Now they clearly have the air defense version of a twitchy trigger finger so don’t be surprised if in the near future we see a tragedy.
Why this matters is that Zelensky is in DC to meeting with Trumpty. If J.D. Vance decides to be an a-hole again I’d love to see Zelensky slap him down using this incident. More seriously however is that Zelensky knows what I mentioned earlier. Trumpty will meet in person with Pootie next week. Putin will both refuse to withdraw from Ukraine and end the war, AND that Trump dial down sanctions on Russia instead of dialing them UP.
Zelensky can use the fact that his country is still there, still fighting the Russian invaders and how long it’s been since Russia managed to take any territory beyond what it got in the east and south early in the war. Putin and Russia aren’t going to win. In the end they’ll keep little of what they’ve gotten. My prediction is that a peace agreement will wind up with pre-war lines – Russia keeping much of the two eastern Oblasts (provinces) it had illegally occupied after its (also) illegal annexation of Crimea. That’s a different discussion.
What matters is that Zelensky can make a solid point with Trump that not only is Ukraine holding its own even without the kind of U.S. support it got early on but even taking the fight to Russia. AND that Ukraine is mostly attacking legitimate military targets while Russia continues to commit war crimes by deliberately attacking civilians. AND how Russia turned out NOT to have a fearsome military that could just roll over any other country if it wanted to. AND that they are so depleted and increasingly incompetent they are shooting down their own jets!
Sure, Trump will want to kneel down and fellate Putin but maybe Zelensky can help Trumpty grow a bit of spine. If he talks up the self shoot down enough he can park it it Trumpty’s head and who knows? Trump might just accidentally blurt out “but you just shot down your own jet” when Pootie starts spreading bullshit about Russia “winning” and the “inevitability” of Ukraine again being under Russian rule. We’ll have to wait and see.
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President Zelensky meets Trumpler again, allegedly for “discussions,” but Donald’s already phoned Vlad to get his instructions. If Zelensky gets ambushed again, I suspect he’ll accept that this is what the Americans were told to do and he may as well simply sit quietly, absorb the abuse and leave with dignity intact; there was never any help forthcoming. Ukraine is winning the war and that’s not going to change, as Putin knows very well. Trump’s backing the wrong side, as usual.
Zelensky is a warrior. Trump is a pampered trust fund draft dodging child raping punk.
On another note…I’m a little surprised you remained silent when a 24 year marine veteran is called a coward by a pompous ass who refuses to post his military service or lack of. Now that’s cowardice. I realize he is just another clueless phuck sleeping in his bed while the vets guarded his ass. Right Joseph? If not, please enlighten this vet. Otherwise you are just a joke.
Excuse me? I commented in support of Col. Krugman after reading Susan’s article. She beat me to the punch writing about the matter. I suppose I could have then written my own article on the matter but there’s so much shit going on like other writers I try to find things that haven’t been covered yet. Sometimes while one of us is writing on a topic someone else will be at the same time. Usually I open a separate window before publishing a piece to avoid “duplication” but sometimes I forget.
I saw a lengthy live interview with the Col. on MSNBC and have a feeling we will be hearing more from him over time. I sure as hell hope so.
Yet, Joseph in his historic name calling,called him a coward. I defended the marine since I’M CERTAIN JOSEPH NEVER SERVED.
Thought you’d defend your fellow marine against a totally baseless and arrogant comment.
Writing an article doesn’t directly deal with the insult hurled by a civilian to a marine of 24 years in my view.