On the fifth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of many unanswered questions is why Russia has launched a military campaign at huge cost with maximalist objectives, and then declined to use the vast majority of its fixed wing combat aircraft.
Here is a response to this article, listing some possible reasons
It suggests to me, given certain other things I’ve been hearing, that perhaps there is not a unified resolve among the various heads of the armed forces to conduct this…‘exercise’, that perhaps the head of the Russian Air Force is not entirely on board, as it were.
If Russia had no reliable air force, they would have been attacked long ago by NATO (nuclear armed terrorist organization). Fact is that Russia has the most advanced military planes in the world, and unlike F-35 they are actually combat ready and cost efficient.
Saw a thread speculating along those lines https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1499513760922406917 holding back to prove they can do it with ground forces, trying to minimize civilian casualties, or maybe sending in the junk first to flush out where defenses are
“Decisive air battle”, what a joker. Most Ukrainian planes, airports and air defenses were destroyed by standoff weapons in the first hours of the war. Russia has air superiority since multiple days now. Of couse thats ignoring the ghost of kiev, who shoots down a dozen Russian planes every day lmao.