Whatever the reason, the loss of the second of the two Ukrainian aces who pushed the F16 program, along with one of the first six planes a few days after delivery, is not good PR.
...Just as the crazy redeployment of some of the best units from Pokrovsk to Kursk begins to bite.
It's probably a mistake to look for logic or strategy in Zelensky's inner circle... but what on earth are they thinking... or smoking?
You might want to check your sources. The Ukrainian story he was in flight is a cover. He was in a hangar on the ground. The Aug 26th Russian ground strike destroyed two (2) F-16’s and both pilots.
Source? You know that means the the F-16s were both lined up to take off, right. That's pretty precise timing for a massive attack. Also it would involve significant, easily observed damage to the airport itself. I wonder if the source you quote included pictures of the destroyed aircraft and associated damage to the runway. Of all the scenarios yours is the easiest to verify and very difficult to deny. And yet..............
There are videos on the strike on X. It clearly looks like an F16 that was struck by a missile. Furthermore there was a car right next to the plane, which could have been the pilot.
Or it could have the mechanic's car who was working on an out of service F-16 at a different airfield entirely. At any rate, what you are describing is a lot different from clear evidence from a reliable source showing two F-16s were struck with the pilots already in the plane.
Simplicius theorized that in the midst of the Russian large-scale missile barrage that the planes were being scrambled but this hanger was hit by a hypersonic which they couldn’t have known was inbound. Sounds plausible.
Even more plausible is that an inexperienced (on F-16s chasing drones in an combat zone with the sky full of drones and missiles of all types attacking all kinds of targets) pilot died at some point during the loss of the plane.
It was Maryana Bezuhla, the young Defense-oriented MP who recently left Zelensky's faction to step up her campaign against the General Staff, that first publicly cited her military contacts reporting friendly fire.
She was earlier a factor in the sacking of Zaluzhny and Sodol, and she's tried to change the law so field commanders could literally execute their own soldiers.
She seems now to be going for Syrsky, who she's accused of wanting to 'stab Ukraine in the back' with a compromise settlement rather than total victory.
And she'll be interesting to watch as Pokrovsk falls in mid-September.
It's getting difficult not to see the redeployment of key defense units to Kursk as an almost open abandonment of ever-crazier maximalist goals - saying to Putin: OK, you can have most of the Donetsk oblast (and Kharkiv up to the Oskil, and Vuhledar, but maybe not Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Donetsk).
She has Syrsky in her sights, but Zelensky may be next.
Another "source" : It appears that the US-made F-16 fighter jet, which was handed over to Ukraine earlier this year, was downed by a Ukrainian Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident, Ukrainian lawmaker Maryana Bezuglaya said cited by TASS.
I expect to see the Russians start including missiles capable of identifying and attacking F-16s in their drone/missile swarm attacks. Not yet of course but after they establish the relevant, recently modified F-16 distinguishing features. There are no wonder weapons against a near peer.
These are pretty old airframes we're talking about. Given the intensive manner the IDF is utilizing its fleet of F-16's, spare parts are probably hard to come by. The plane in question could have easily suffered a metal-fatigue-related hardware failure that the inexperienced pilot did not know how to recover from.
Kiev has just asked Poland more MiGs (a request that's been rebuffed). That tells us something about the state of the planes Ukraine received.
The aircraft were not only refurbished and upgraded but extensively tested. Your point about Ukraine wanting more does not make any sense as Ukraine has wanted more right from the start. There is no report of any problem with the delivered F-16.
There's only so much that can be done. These planes were literally consigned to the scrap heap. They'd probably been sitting on the ground for years, getting cannibalized for parts. The Ukrainians said they would take them anyway. They knew what they were getting. Along the way their perception of these machines somehow went from "better than nothing" to "game changer". It's bizarre.
It would be challenging to base any analysis on Kiev official statements on such matters. Remember the "Ghost of Kiev"? Nevertheless, an F-16 and pilot was lost and any official statement can be counted on to downplay the significance. Especially so not to acknowledge that Russian military action was responsible including the strike on the airfield where the F-16 was stationed.
"In March 1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, was overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. The F.B.I. found Bryen’s fingerprints on the documents in question, and he admitted to having obtained them the night before the meeting with the Israelis. Bryen was forced to quit his job, but was never indicted. He was later brought on to the Defense Department as a deputy to Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary Richard Pearle. There Bryen was in charge of such matters as overseeing technology transfers in the Mideast. (See “The Armageddon Network” (Amana Books) by Michael Saba, an officer of the National Association of Arab Americans when he overheard Bryen offer the documents to the Israelis.)
As late as 1992, Stephen Bryen was serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant — with security clearance — on exports of sensitive US technology. (Wall Street Journal, 1/22/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers)”
"In the U.S., administration officials were cagey about their feelings on the shake-up.
“ 'There may be reasons for concern,' said a senior administration official, declining to provide further details. That comment came only after the official was granted anonymity to be candid."
Not sure how much Joe and Kamala understand - but State & Pentagon know real power is more and more concentrated in Yermak and Budanov, with Zelensky as their front-man.
Mr. Iskander missile paid a visit on 26.Aug.2024 after Ukraine published a picture Russia geolocated to Korolivka destroying an F-16 (possibly two) & killing “ace pilot Moonfish.” It took 4-5 days for the Nazi Kiev regime to concoct the lie that the F-16 was destroyed in its first mission that the Empire of Lies didn’t like & changed to the official story to “US wunderwaffen destroys a US wunderwaffen” lie. What a clown show! This “Project Ukraine” has been nothing but lies & the second largest grift after the apartheid genocidal terrorist Zionist entity known as Israel grift.
Elensky was ordered by his masters the Empire of Lies USA to fire that head of Air Force. That’s just a ruse to hide the embarrassment of NATO JUNK weapons. He does EVERYTHING he is told to do, including killing Russian civilians & attacking the ZNPP & Kursk NPP.
PARIS, August 30. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military has adapted sections of highways to receive F-16 aircraft instead of airbases to reduce the odds of a strike on them, the LCI TV channel reported, publishing a video showing one of these roads.
To avoid confusion you may call the "Russian" planes that are in UA service more accurately "Soviet" ones (they contained a lot of parts from other Soviet republics, and also indicating age 35+ years).
You are wrong - UA didn't get any Su-27 from anybody. Current NATO members, former Warsaw pact members or parts of USSR, didn't have them. There was only some talk about wrecks from Kazakhstan.
Crashes happen in military aviation all the time, even new planes, just recently a F35 near Albuquerque. If some old beyond life time stuff crashes the reason could be everything. Did the ejection seat even was in working condition?
Were the so-called “Russian” air defense systems used by the Ukraine actually sold by the Russian Federation during times of better relations, or are they left over from the USSR?
Probably a dumb question, but could the fact that Russian cruise missiles have recently been following terrain less than 50m from the ground be a factor?
Even for a skilled pilot, manoeuvring a relatively unfamiliar plane to intercept a fourth cruise missile following terrain at 40m seems as though it might be challenging, despite perhaps sophisticated (but again, unfamiliar) linked ground and platform radar and other electronics?
"According to U.S. Air Force statistics, CFIT incidents account for 26 percent of aircraft losses and a staggering 75 percent of all F-16 pilot fatalities"
Your entire argument strikes me as irrelevant. We know what happened to the F-16. You don't fire the head of the air force unless you think he screwed up big time and shot down his own plane.
Z fired the airforce chief AFTER I asked about CFIT - responsible for 75% of F-16 losses with fully trained pilots.
With respect, I didn't initially say CFIT was a probable, only a possible cause... and with improved Russian low altitude cruise missile guidance, I guess it will be a probable cause of Ukrainian F-16 losses in the future.
But again, I know almost nothing of integrated ground-air-satellite flight and target control.
Thanks once more for the technical detail.
Whatever the reason, the loss of the second of the two Ukrainian aces who pushed the F16 program, along with one of the first six planes a few days after delivery, is not good PR.
...Just as the crazy redeployment of some of the best units from Pokrovsk to Kursk begins to bite.
It's probably a mistake to look for logic or strategy in Zelensky's inner circle... but what on earth are they thinking... or smoking?
A more basic question:
How have these clowns survived so long?
Clausewitz must be turning in his grave.
You might want to check your sources. The Ukrainian story he was in flight is a cover. He was in a hangar on the ground. The Aug 26th Russian ground strike destroyed two (2) F-16’s and both pilots.
where is the evidence?
Source? You know that means the the F-16s were both lined up to take off, right. That's pretty precise timing for a massive attack. Also it would involve significant, easily observed damage to the airport itself. I wonder if the source you quote included pictures of the destroyed aircraft and associated damage to the runway. Of all the scenarios yours is the easiest to verify and very difficult to deny. And yet..............
There are videos on the strike on X. It clearly looks like an F16 that was struck by a missile. Furthermore there was a car right next to the plane, which could have been the pilot.
Or it could have the mechanic's car who was working on an out of service F-16 at a different airfield entirely. At any rate, what you are describing is a lot different from clear evidence from a reliable source showing two F-16s were struck with the pilots already in the plane.
I also saw another source making this claim.
I don't credit either "story" --I base the article on the official version plus an interpretation (which as I note is speculative)
Simplicius theorized that in the midst of the Russian large-scale missile barrage that the planes were being scrambled but this hanger was hit by a hypersonic which they couldn’t have known was inbound. Sounds plausible.
Even more plausible is that an inexperienced (on F-16s chasing drones in an combat zone with the sky full of drones and missiles of all types attacking all kinds of targets) pilot died at some point during the loss of the plane.
And now Zelensky has fired the head of his airforce, which Western media are attributing to the Moonfish crash, as Selydove falls...
But hey, he's got a new buffer zone of farmland in the middle of nowhere...
Actually, firing the head of the airforce does seem to confirm the Friendly Fire scenario
...along with increasing, maybe terminal, desperation
It was Maryana Bezuhla, the young Defense-oriented MP who recently left Zelensky's faction to step up her campaign against the General Staff, that first publicly cited her military contacts reporting friendly fire.
She was earlier a factor in the sacking of Zaluzhny and Sodol, and she's tried to change the law so field commanders could literally execute their own soldiers.
She seems now to be going for Syrsky, who she's accused of wanting to 'stab Ukraine in the back' with a compromise settlement rather than total victory.
And she'll be interesting to watch as Pokrovsk falls in mid-September.
It's getting difficult not to see the redeployment of key defense units to Kursk as an almost open abandonment of ever-crazier maximalist goals - saying to Putin: OK, you can have most of the Donetsk oblast (and Kharkiv up to the Oskil, and Vuhledar, but maybe not Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Donetsk).
She has Syrsky in her sights, but Zelensky may be next.
interesting observations worth following
I think Kramatorsk remains the key question going forward.
Another "source" : It appears that the US-made F-16 fighter jet, which was handed over to Ukraine earlier this year, was downed by a Ukrainian Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident, Ukrainian lawmaker Maryana Bezuglaya said cited by TASS.
I expect to see the Russians start including missiles capable of identifying and attacking F-16s in their drone/missile swarm attacks. Not yet of course but after they establish the relevant, recently modified F-16 distinguishing features. There are no wonder weapons against a near peer.
These are pretty old airframes we're talking about. Given the intensive manner the IDF is utilizing its fleet of F-16's, spare parts are probably hard to come by. The plane in question could have easily suffered a metal-fatigue-related hardware failure that the inexperienced pilot did not know how to recover from.
Kiev has just asked Poland more MiGs (a request that's been rebuffed). That tells us something about the state of the planes Ukraine received.
The aircraft were not only refurbished and upgraded but extensively tested. Your point about Ukraine wanting more does not make any sense as Ukraine has wanted more right from the start. There is no report of any problem with the delivered F-16.
There's only so much that can be done. These planes were literally consigned to the scrap heap. They'd probably been sitting on the ground for years, getting cannibalized for parts. The Ukrainians said they would take them anyway. They knew what they were getting. Along the way their perception of these machines somehow went from "better than nothing" to "game changer". It's bizarre.
It would be challenging to base any analysis on Kiev official statements on such matters. Remember the "Ghost of Kiev"? Nevertheless, an F-16 and pilot was lost and any official statement can be counted on to downplay the significance. Especially so not to acknowledge that Russian military action was responsible including the strike on the airfield where the F-16 was stationed.
AMF, Mesia. Zemlya steklovataya.
Care to comment?
"In March 1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, was overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. The F.B.I. found Bryen’s fingerprints on the documents in question, and he admitted to having obtained them the night before the meeting with the Israelis. Bryen was forced to quit his job, but was never indicted. He was later brought on to the Defense Department as a deputy to Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary Richard Pearle. There Bryen was in charge of such matters as overseeing technology transfers in the Mideast. (See “The Armageddon Network” (Amana Books) by Michael Saba, an officer of the National Association of Arab Americans when he overheard Bryen offer the documents to the Israelis.)
As late as 1992, Stephen Bryen was serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant — with security clearance — on exports of sensitive US technology. (Wall Street Journal, 1/22/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers)”
(from https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/08/30/israeli-espionage-against-the-us/)
This is completely wrong and unacceptable.
Now Yermak has fired Kuleba....
"In the U.S., administration officials were cagey about their feelings on the shake-up.
“ 'There may be reasons for concern,' said a senior administration official, declining to provide further details. That comment came only after the official was granted anonymity to be candid."
Not sure how much Joe and Kamala understand - but State & Pentagon know real power is more and more concentrated in Yermak and Budanov, with Zelensky as their front-man.
And Washington is getting seriously worried.
Se la propaganda russa avesse voluto inventare una storia per sputtanare la N.A.T.O. non avrebbe potuto fare nulla di meglio.
Sono d'accordo.
Mr. Iskander missile paid a visit on 26.Aug.2024 after Ukraine published a picture Russia geolocated to Korolivka destroying an F-16 (possibly two) & killing “ace pilot Moonfish.” It took 4-5 days for the Nazi Kiev regime to concoct the lie that the F-16 was destroyed in its first mission that the Empire of Lies didn’t like & changed to the official story to “US wunderwaffen destroys a US wunderwaffen” lie. What a clown show! This “Project Ukraine” has been nothing but lies & the second largest grift after the apartheid genocidal terrorist Zionist entity known as Israel grift.
As I pointed out, if it was an Iskander hit Zelensky would not have fired the Air Force head.
Elensky was ordered by his masters the Empire of Lies USA to fire that head of Air Force. That’s just a ruse to hide the embarrassment of NATO JUNK weapons. He does EVERYTHING he is told to do, including killing Russian civilians & attacking the ZNPP & Kursk NPP.
Cool simulation of an F-16 detachment (based on only a long road!) intercepting a Russian cruise missile with AIM-9 sidewinders over Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP3kf5oOezE
PARIS, August 30. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military has adapted sections of highways to receive F-16 aircraft instead of airbases to reduce the odds of a strike on them, the LCI TV channel reported, publishing a video showing one of these roads.
To avoid confusion you may call the "Russian" planes that are in UA service more accurately "Soviet" ones (they contained a lot of parts from other Soviet republics, and also indicating age 35+ years).
You are wrong - UA didn't get any Su-27 from anybody. Current NATO members, former Warsaw pact members or parts of USSR, didn't have them. There was only some talk about wrecks from Kazakhstan.
Crashes happen in military aviation all the time, even new planes, just recently a F35 near Albuquerque. If some old beyond life time stuff crashes the reason could be everything. Did the ejection seat even was in working condition?
Were the so-called “Russian” air defense systems used by the Ukraine actually sold by the Russian Federation during times of better relations, or are they left over from the USSR?
I don't know the answer but I suspect they are all USSR left behinds.
Probably a dumb question, but could the fact that Russian cruise missiles have recently been following terrain less than 50m from the ground be a factor?
Are you suggesting the pilot flew into the ground?
Even for a skilled pilot, manoeuvring a relatively unfamiliar plane to intercept a fourth cruise missile following terrain at 40m seems as though it might be challenging, despite perhaps sophisticated (but again, unfamiliar) linked ground and platform radar and other electronics?
(not to mention linked NATO support assets)
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/autogcas.html
"According to U.S. Air Force statistics, CFIT incidents account for 26 percent of aircraft losses and a staggering 75 percent of all F-16 pilot fatalities"
Your entire argument strikes me as irrelevant. We know what happened to the F-16. You don't fire the head of the air force unless you think he screwed up big time and shot down his own plane.
Z fired the airforce chief AFTER I asked about CFIT - responsible for 75% of F-16 losses with fully trained pilots.
With respect, I didn't initially say CFIT was a probable, only a possible cause... and with improved Russian low altitude cruise missile guidance, I guess it will be a probable cause of Ukrainian F-16 losses in the future.
But again, I know almost nothing of integrated ground-air-satellite flight and target control.
'CFIT'