Most of these missiles wouldn't be launched by the Su-57, only the Kh-69 and Kh-59 would be, represented by the pink markers in this graphic. I only see a handful of pink lines.
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joined 5 years ago
I think it's in response to last night's Russian aerial attack on Ukraine. Macron's latest statements today about wanting "to push Russia to stop fighting" and stating that "Putin doesn't want peace" due to this attack, point towards that reasoning. Rybar stated that it was one of the largest aerial assualts Russia has conducted since WW2. Hundreds of missiles and drones of all types were fired, and 20+ strategic bombers, including the Tu-95 and Tu-160, were deployed and launched cruise missiles. This is the first use of the Tu-160 in the Ukraine war. It was an escalatory strike by Russia against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a manner that was not done before, even attacking substations and power lines connected to nuclear power plants, forcing them to reduce generation capacity to between 40-90% of maximum output. The USA/NATO will respond in turn with their own escalation, and decisions around long range weapons appear to be part of that.
It's important to note that Russia had the capability to carry out such a strike since day 1 of the war, but chose not to. The US and NATO also had the capability to use Ukraine to conduct long range strikes inside Russian territory using their weapons for quite some time, but also chose not to do so. A lot of the times in warfare, attacking is not about having the capability to perform an action, but about the potential consequences associated with that action. Russia has now decided to escalate from a position of strength with regards to how the war is going in Ukraine, with constant territorial gains. They clearly believe that they can survive the consequences of such an escalation, otherwise they wouldn't have carried out last night's attack. Russia can also escalate further in response to US/NATO escalation if Russia chooses to.
Yeah, the long range stand-off weapon that the Ukrainian Air Force has used is the Storm Shadow/SCALP air launched subsonic stealth cruise missile, which has a range of 560km/350mi. Ukraine launch them from modified Su-24 bombers, modified with parts and likely avionics packages from the British Tornado GR4 aircraft.
The F-16s could theoretically carry JASSM stealth subsonic cruise missiles, though there has been no final agreement on that as of yet.
Not news, but a massive struggle session happened with regards to that, the admins planned to shut down and replace the communities. Be glad you missed it.
I'm not leaving the news megathread anymore, it's not worth it.
It would be reasonable in a way, but giving such weapons to Ansar Allah increases the chance of a US/NATO military ship being hit quite substantially. Cruise missiles are much more suited to hitting moving targets like ships than ballistic missiles, and the P-800 is a vast improvement on the cruise missiles in their arsenal. The escalation ladder from such an event could be very ugly.
Given the events that took place after this phone call, it must've gone terribly.
I'm also sure that Russia have made preparations for such a decision, and considered it when choosing to escalate in their large aerial bombardment of Ukraine last night. A response by Ukraine and their US/NATO backers was to be expected, and ATACMS usage on Russian soil is one such response that was quite likely.
No, there are no air launched versions of the ATACMS ballistic missiles. There was a planned version under the JTACMS name, but it was scrapped. The F-16s can carry plenty of other weapons though, and were mainly sent over to bolster Ukraine's air defence, in intercepting Russian fighter jets and missiles.
If Ukraine want air launched ballistic missiles for the F-16, they'd need to get those from Israel.
The last time the US came close to giving Ukraine permission to use long range weapons on Russian soil, Russia floated the idea of supplying Ansar Allah/the Houthis with P-800 Oniks/Yakhont ramjet powered supersonic anti ship cruise missiles.
I don't think ATACMS has the range to reach Moscow. Longest range variants have a range of 300km/190 miles.
It's an issue that's been debated in US circles for some time with the US initially deciding against it, and Russia has prepared for a potential authorisation of ATACMS on Russian soil, but to me the fact that the decision was made today, and not earlier, is a big deal in my view.
Yellow is Geran/Shahed 136 one way attack drones. An Su-57 was spotted flying over Ukrainian territory earlier this year around 20km beyond the frontlines, when it had to shoot down it's friendly partnered S-70 drone after it lost control over the drone. So yeah they can operate behind Ukrainian lines without detection. This likely played a key role in the attack on Trypilska thermal power plant in April of this year, as well as recent attacks on Odessa.