Yes, and that was codified by all signatories of the Budapest Memorandum. Russia tries to argue that it hasn't violated the terms because it only uses weapons against another signatory state "in self-defense", which is an agreed exception. Everyone knows it's ludicrous, but apparently even Russia does not want to be perceived as violating agreements.
Hopfgeist
joined 1 year ago
The very concept of "NATO expands" is misleading. NATO doesn't decide to expand. Countries that had previously been neutral apply for membership. Contrast that to how "Russkiy Mir" expands.
Must have been someone smoking at work again, igniting that volatile molten steel.
Thanks. I'm not too good with Cyrillic letters.
Tragic, if true, but you need to work on your texts and captions. HIMARS is rocket artillery, not an "anti-aircraft missile defense system": High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System. And what is the caption in the video? PC30? BCY?
Saying it hasn't been built in 30 years is a bit misleading. Although the base Il-76 airframes may be that old, the latest substantial avionics upgrade (designated A-50U) is less than 15 years old or so (first delivery in 2011), which isn't too bad for military and aircraft systems. A lot of the E-3 equipment is older. That is not to say it is more capable than the E-3, it probably isn't, but I'd say a fully functioning A-50U should not be underestimated. It's even got toilets! Then again, it is also not clear to me that any "U" models are currently airworthy.
Also, for some comedic relief, there is a "Combat Approved" episode about the A-50. "Combat approved" is a youtube channel making unbelievably (though unintentionally) funny parodies of documentaries. Everything Russian is the absolute best, the old Russian stuff is decades ahead of anything the west is currently developing, etc. The impressive thing that they can say all this with a straight face. They have lots more of these hilarious episodes, plus dozens of short clips of aircraft landing and taking off, and some live-firing exercises.
I guess the question "why wouldn't they just build the A-100 instead?" has about the same answer as "why don't they just build thousands of T-14 tanks?". They can't. Partly perhaps because it needs Western electronics, which are difficult to obtain.
That aside, restarting production of a large and complex aeroplane is going to take years.
True, some will probably have survived, and some of those may even fly again (some percentage usually sustain disqualifying injuries during ejection). The A-50 crews probably had no way to bail out, though, regardless of where they were shot down.
This is in such stark contrast to Russian soldiers, who capture and disarm Ukrainian soldiers, who have surrendered, and then shoot them. Yes, not all Russian soldiers, probably a minority, but still, there are now several documented cases (and almost certainly many undocumented).
Yes. And unlike foot soldiers, and to some extent tank crews, pilots cannot be replaced in a few weeks, or even months, if you want them to be halfway competent in operating a complex weapons platform. Then again, given the number of pilots who have "accidentally" dropped munitions on Russian towns, "competent" seems to be relative. The alternative explanation is, of course, that the pilots knew what would likely happen over Ukraine, and did the prudent thing, "losing" their ordnance before flying into range of Ukrainian air defence, and then returning safely to base.
Ukraine never had effective control of the nuclear warheads, although they had physical control and probably could have made them unusable, but not fire them without some serious reverse-engineering and possibly rebuilding large parts.