What happened to the armyair Russian? U.S. officials and pundits puzzled

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Before Russia invasion of Ukraine, the intelligence services U had predicted a probable lightning assault from Moscow that would quickly mobilize the vast Russian network air power what it is military assembled in in order to dominate the Ukrainian skies.

But the first six days confused these expectations and instead seen Moscow acting far more delicately with son air powerso much so that US officials cannot explain exactly what is driving the apparent Russia risk-downpour behavior.

“They are not necessarily willing to take high risks with their own planes and their own pilots”, a senior we defense official said, speaking on state of anonymity.

Largely surpassed by Russia military, in terms of raw numbers and firepower, unique to Ukraine air force always fly and son air tusks are still considered viable – a fact it’s disconcerting military experts.

After the opening bursts of the war on On February 24, analysts expected Russia military try right away destroy Ukraine air force and air tusks.

This would have been “the logical and widely anticipated continuation next stepas seen in almost all the military conflict since 1938,” wrote the RUSI think tank in London, in an article titled “The Mysterious Case of the army of theair Missing Russian.”

Instead, Ukrainian air force fighter planes still carry out low level, defensive to counter-air and ground-attack exits. Russia is still flying over disputed airspace.

Ukrainian troops with surface-to-air rockets can threaten Russian aircraft and create risk to Russian pilots trying to support ground forces.

“There are several of them of what they are doing is baffling,” said Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

He thought the beginning of war would bemaximum use of force.”

“Because every day is fine on there is a cost and the risk goes up. And they don’t do this and that just is really hard to explain for all realistic reason.”

The confusion over how Russia used son air force comes as President Joe Biden’s administration rejects calls from Kyiv for a no-fly zone that could attract the United States directly in a conflict with Russia, of which future plans for son air force are not clear.

Military experts have seen evidence of a lack of Russian air force coordination with ground troop formations, with several Russian columns of troops sent forward out of reach of theirs air defense blanket.

This leaves the Russian soldiers vulnerable to attack Ukrainian forces, including those newly equipped with Turkish drones and American and British anti-tank missiles.

David Deptula, a retired US Air Force three-star general who once commanded the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, said he was surprised that Russia had not work more difficult to establish air domination of the start.

“The Russians are discovering that coordinating multi-domain operations is not easy,” Deptula told Reuters. “And that they are not so good as they believed.”

While the Russians have been underperforming, the Ukrainians military has exceeded expectations so far.

Ukraine experience from last eight years of combat with Russian-backed separatist forces in the east was dominated by World War I-style static trench warfare.

On the other hand, the Russian forces obtained combat experience in Syria, where they intervened on the side of Bashar Assad, and demonstrated some ability to synchronize maneuvers on the ground with air and drone attacks.

Ukraine ability keep flying air force jets is a visible demonstration of the resilience of the country in the face of attack and has been a morale booster, both for its own military and Ukrainian peopleExperts say.

He has also leads to mythologizing of Ukrainian air forcehave a tale about a Ukrainian jet fighter that allegedly shot down single-handedly six Russian planes, nicknamed online like “The Phantom of Kyiv.”

A Reuters fact check showed how an excerpt from the video game The simulator of combat digital was incorrectly captioned online claim it was a real Ukrainian fighter plane shot down a Russian plane.

The United States believes that Russia is using just over 75 planes in son Ukraine invaded senior we official noted.

Before of The invasion officials had estimated that Russia had potentially prepared hundreds of the thousands of plane in son air force for a Ukraine mission. However, the senior we official on Tuesday declined to estimate how a lot of Russian combat planes, including attack helicopters, maybe still available and outside Ukraine.

Both sides take casualties.

“We have indications that they lost some (planes), but so did the Ukrainians,” said the official noted.

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