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- The F-16 and the Patriot can’t work wonders everywhere, but they can in some places.
- There are signs that a new attack on Vuhledar is beginning from a new direction.
- Russia dragged gender-neutral toilets into the war.
- Map of the day – towards Vuhledar.
- Videos of the Day – Bradley vs Russian BMP; A-50U in the air and inside; The Mi-8 fires almost from the ground; how effective winter camouflage covers are; Putin philosophizes about toilets.
The information in this text is a summary of the events for Tuesday, January 16th. The situation may be different in some places.
The F-16 and the Patriot can’t work wonders everywhere, but they can in some places. Ukraine “must achieve air supremacy to advance on the ground,” Volodymyr Zelensky said this week.
“In 2024, the priority is to wipe Russia out of the sky. Because whoever controls the sky will determine when and how the war ends,” his Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday.
You’re right. Russian air superiority is one of the reasons for the failure of the summer offensive. The Ukrainian army carried out this despite the lack of means to effectively defend against air attacks. They paid dearly for this when Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters fired on Ukrainian mechanized units from a safe distance. Especially in June 2023 it was the order of the day.
The same weakness manifests itself in different parts of the front. Russian bombers attack the defenders of Avdijivka and Krynek with impunity; in April 2022, Tu-22 strategic bombers even bombed Azov Valley in Mariupol, where the city’s last defenders had taken refuge, from relatively low altitudes and at parade speed.
The air war has reached a stage where the Russians no longer dare to fly over Ukrainian cities and only bombard them with rockets, drones and flat-trajectory missiles, but the Ukrainian air defense over the front is largely defenseless.
When the Ukrainians say they need to knock the Russian Air Force out of the sky, they certainly mean it. Can they succeed?
Talk about it
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