[GK3]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...plnews_d-1

Can someone explain the logic here?  Putin has never responded to attempts to placate him so I don’t understand the logic of preventing Ukraine from attacking into Russia making Russia more likely to negotiate; Putin is never going to negotiate unless he faces negative consequences.  Btw, the prior administration used the same logic thinking that we want to avoid escalation, but that only encourages Putin to escalate without consequences.

BC

You have a very good question.  The only reason I can think of is that we have some sort of intelligence we believe in that says such strikes will result in Russia doing something we really do not want them to do.  What that would be I can't figure.  Tactical nukes or a direct attack on a NATO country seems very unlikely.  Perhaps getting more involved in the Middle East.  Something like giving more help to Iran, say some of their Intermediate range ballistic missles. Israel would love to get us fully involved with Iran and do all the heavy lifting, meaning boots on the ground and significant American casualties.  I have no real idea.  Hard to figure.

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I don't understand why the Flamingo was publicly announced.  Sure, release the info privately to US and allies (to show Ukraine will continue to defend, but with more offense), but send a volley of them to announce the new capability to Russia and the public.

The 3-hour flight time to the longest range would seem to allow vectoring Russian aircraft to cover large areas to shoot these down.  So the main thing for Russia is to find and track them via airborne assets.  Shmel-M radar on an A-50 could track 300 targets within 400 miles (the horizon at max altitude of 15km is 270 miles away; ie, a diameter of 540 miles). The Ukraine-Russia border is about 1200 miles but you have to take into account the routes over the Black Sea). A handful of the Russian A-50 should be able to watch for these entering into Russia. (It isn't clear to me how many A-50 aircraft are available.)  Position aircraft or S-400 launchers to defend close targets quickly. Scramble & vector aircraft for further targets.

Great post! IMO what you have described is the recipe to neutralize these new Ukrainian weapons. Practically speaking, the fighters must be in the air at the time the targets are detected. The time lost getting into the area from possibly distant bases is too long. Russia can rotate fighters to ensure nobody has to fly exceptionally long missions. Back in the day, the PVO was expert at this. So far in this war, the VKS hasn't shown the ability to field any kind of persistent CAP. There is no inherent reason they couldn't however.
 
You are also correct that 4 or 5 A-50s could execute the warning and control functions. For Russia, the problem is that even 10 hour missions in these aircraft are exhausting. These aircraft have additional transit times from their bases to their operating area. These aircraft need to be "on station" 24/7. Also, for every hour in the air there is probably several hours of maintenance required on the A-50. It may be that some ground-based radars could function as "gap fillers", but realistically Russia would probably need at least 15 A-50s with trained crews to do a perfect job. Even that wouldn't be enough for a month-in month-out effort. Extended maintenance periods are periodically needed. Crews can only operate 3 days on 1 day off for a month or so without a break. Russia simply hasn't got enough planes to do this effort.
 
The other side of this argument is that Ukraine can't actually launch these drones from random places. Support facilities and launching ramps are required. There is a heavy logistical load. Therefore covering the entire Ukrainian border all the time wouldn't be required. The trick would be knowing how to apportion the limited number of A-50s.

For example, Moscow is about 45 minutes flight time for one of these.  That should allow a scrambled fighter to take care of several on a direct path if Russia can detect them entering their airspace and track them after that. (For Moscow, there must be plenty of S-400 missiles to take it out, but Moscow was just an example here.)

The S-400 A-50 cooperation isn't a routine event. Arguably it should be, but AFAIK it is still somewhat "experimental" and not part of the regular syllabus. It could become "standard", but that would take time and training. Vectoring fighters to specific missiles is also not trivial in that the missile may not (probably will not) take a direct route to its target. The A-50 can't assume the missile will fly straight.

In the description, I didn't see if the routing of the missiles can be changed in-flight by ground control.  Additionally, would such missiles be able to maneuver if they detected they were being targeted?

The missile has no way to know if it is targeted. It has no sensors on board that can do that. Ground control also has no way to get a radio signal to a low flying missile in the middle of Russia, unless of course they use text messages :-).

I thought Russia only had 4 or 5 operational A50s. Using them this way would as you say increase the maintenance need and one has no idea how easily they can get new hardware for them.  Plus I would assume that if one got too close to Ukraine, Ukraine might risk one of its F16s to take out a A50. I would assume the first target we would have in a Russian - NATO fight would be the A50s.

[GK3]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...plnews_d-1

Can someone explain the logic here?  Putin has never responded to attempts to placate him so I don’t understand the logic of preventing Ukraine from attacking into Russia making Russia more likely to negotiate; Putin is never going to negotiate unless he faces negative consequences.  Btw, the prior administration used the same logic thinking that we want to avoid escalation, but that only encourages Putin to escalate without consequences.

BC

You have a very good question.  The only reason I can think of is that we have some sort of intelligence we believe in that says such strikes will result in Russia doing something we really do not want them to do.  What that would be I can't figure.  Tactical nukes or a direct attack on a NATO country seems very unlikely.  Perhaps getting more involved in the Middle East.  Something like giving more help to Iran, say some of their Intermediate range ballistic missles. Israel would love to get us fully involved with Iran and do all the heavy lifting, meaning boots on the ground and significant American casualties.  I have no real idea.  Hard to figure.

---

I don't understand why the Flamingo was publicly announced.  Sure, release the info privately to US and allies (to show Ukraine will continue to defend, but with more offense), but send a volley of them to announce the new capability to Russia and the public.

The 3-hour flight time to the longest range would seem to allow vectoring Russian aircraft to cover large areas to shoot these down.  So the main thing for Russia is to find and track them via airborne assets.  Shmel-M radar on an A-50 could track 300 targets within 400 miles (the horizon at max altitude of 15km is 270 miles away; ie, a diameter of 540 miles). The Ukraine-Russia border is about 1200 miles but you have to take into account the routes over the Black Sea). A handful of the Russian A-50 should be able to watch for these entering into Russia. (It isn't clear to me how many A-50 aircraft are available.)  Position aircraft or S-400 launchers to defend close targets quickly. Scramble & vector aircraft for further targets.

Great post! IMO what you have described is the recipe to neutralize these new Ukrainian weapons. Practically speaking, the fighters must be in the air at the time the targets are detected. The time lost getting into the area from possibly distant bases is too long. Russia can rotate fighters to ensure nobody has to fly exceptionally long missions. Back in the day, the PVO was expert at this. So far in this war, the VKS hasn't shown the ability to field any kind of persistent CAP. There is no inherent reason they couldn't however.
 
You are also correct that 4 or 5 A-50s could execute the warning and control functions. For Russia, the problem is that even 10 hour missions in these aircraft are exhausting. These aircraft have additional transit times from their bases to their operating area. These aircraft need to be "on station" 24/7. Also, for every hour in the air there is probably several hours of maintenance required on the A-50. It may be that some ground-based radars could function as "gap fillers", but realistically Russia would probably need at least 15 A-50s with trained crews to do a perfect job. Even that wouldn't be enough for a month-in month-out effort. Extended maintenance periods are periodically needed. Crews can only operate 3 days on 1 day off for a month or so without a break. Russia simply hasn't got enough planes to do this effort.
 
The other side of this argument is that Ukraine can't actually launch these drones from random places. Support facilities and launching ramps are required. There is a heavy logistical load. Therefore covering the entire Ukrainian border all the time wouldn't be required. The trick would be knowing how to apportion the limited number of A-50s.

For example, Moscow is about 45 minutes flight time for one of these.  That should allow a scrambled fighter to take care of several on a direct path if Russia can detect them entering their airspace and track them after that. (For Moscow, there must be plenty of S-400 missiles to take it out, but Moscow was just an example here.)

The S-400 A-50 cooperation isn't a routine event. Arguably it should be, but AFAIK it is still somewhat "experimental" and not part of the regular syllabus. It could become "standard", but that would take time and training. Vectoring fighters to specific missiles is also not trivial in that the missile may not (probably will not) take a direct route to its target. The A-50 can't assume the missile will fly straight.

In the description, I didn't see if the routing of the missiles can be changed in-flight by ground control.  Additionally, would such missiles be able to maneuver if they detected they were being targeted?

The missile has no way to know if it is targeted. It has no sensors on board that can do that. Ground control also has no way to get a radio signal to a low flying missile in the middle of Russia, unless of course they use text messages :-).

I thought Russia only had 4 or 5 operational A50s. Using them this way would as you say increase the maintenance need and one has no idea how easily they can get new hardware for them.  Plus I would assume that if one got too close to Ukraine, Ukraine might risk one of its F16s to take out a A50. I would assume the first target we would have in a Russian - NATO fight would be the A50s.