[dabigv13]

Satellite photos coming in now from after the strike. Looks like a lot of lost Su24 and Su30s, certainly the heaviest loss of Russian aircraft from a single day/event since WW2. A substantial loss for Russia that will impact their operations in the area and will be hard to replace. The planes lined up on the tarmac are all toast, as are most of the ones that were parked with protecting revetments.

[Tweet]https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1557441267109400576?s=20&t=Ql4CsJGOkwR6_SCr98CjAw[/tweet]

Pretty incredible, I wonder how many pilots might have been hit as well.  Now the question is, what did this.  We can see some pretty large craters, I asked someone on Twitter about this and it could be ATACMS, but they didn't rule out ground attack Neptunes.  I think we can certainly say this wasn't an accident caused by Russian soldiers, but we already knew that.

I think the craters could be related to impacts from missiles, but could also be from exploding munitions.

Theories I have seen that seem most plausible- AGM88's clearing a path for slower Neptun, which are subsonic but would have a big warhead. Either the threat of AGM88 or some active strikes to open things up for the slow, big Neptuns. But would be tricky to disable SAM radars that deep I would think, presumably many overlapping systems cover this area.

Alternatively, Ukraine has been domestically developing a short range ballistic missile called the Hrim-2. They likely did not have any operational at the start of the war, but perhaps have brought some online, maybe with some American GPS systems or other engineering assistance.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/do...c-missiles

ATACMS seems less likely to me- we've said as recently as a couple weeks ago that we would not provide them. So I think it would be more inflammatory and unlikely.

[dabigv13]

Satellite photos coming in now from after the strike. Looks like a lot of lost Su24 and Su30s, certainly the heaviest loss of Russian aircraft from a single day/event since WW2. A substantial loss for Russia that will impact their operations in the area and will be hard to replace. The planes lined up on the tarmac are all toast, as are most of the ones that were parked with protecting revetments.

[Tweet]https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1557441267109400576?s=20&t=Ql4CsJGOkwR6_SCr98CjAw[/tweet]

Pretty incredible, I wonder how many pilots might have been hit as well.  Now the question is, what did this.  We can see some pretty large craters, I asked someone on Twitter about this and it could be ATACMS, but they didn't rule out ground attack Neptunes.  I think we can certainly say this wasn't an accident caused by Russian soldiers, but we already knew that.

I think the craters could be related to impacts from missiles, but could also be from exploding munitions.

Theories I have seen that seem most plausible- AGM88's clearing a path for slower Neptun, which are subsonic but would have a big warhead. Either the threat of AGM88 or some active strikes to open things up for the slow, big Neptuns. But would be tricky to disable SAM radars that deep I would think, presumably many overlapping systems cover this area.

Alternatively, Ukraine has been domestically developing a short range ballistic missile called the Hrim-2. They likely did not have any operational at the start of the war, but perhaps have brought some online, maybe with some American GPS systems or other engineering assistance.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/do...c-missiles

ATACMS seems less likely to me- we've said as recently as a couple weeks ago that we would not provide them. So I think it would be more inflammatory and unlikely.