As rumors swirl about an alleged cagey Ukrainian operation, sanctions are likely to hurt any chances at new A-50s rolling off Russian lines with enough specialists to man it, experts told Breaking Defense.
The task “will be unlike any previous former battle zone,” Henrik Faerch, CEO of the Danish mine clearing firm Damasec, told Breaking Defense.
"They will have to decide what costs them more: to lose one or more of these A-50s or to continue to see their combat aircraft and S-400 units progressively degraded," a Ukrainian expert told Breaking Defense.
Last week's European Council meeting in Brussels ended with a pledge that Ukraine will "remain a priority," but there are fissures, both political and logistical, in Kyiv's support.
“When it comes to the Russian VKS all you can say sometimes is ‘thank God for shoddy maintenance,’” a NATO-nation military aviation analyst told Breaking Defense.
SOUTHCOM head Gen. Laura Richardson spelled it out clearly, saying Chinese investment in the region means Beijing is “on the 20-yard line of our homeland."
According to Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, the Neptune preformed “flawlessly” during the Aug. 23 attack on a Russian Almaz-Antei S-400 “Triumf” air and missile defense complex.
“No one wants the Chinese to become capable of designing and building their own jet engines,” said a retired NATO-nation intelligence officer who spoke to Breaking Defense.
Air attacks haven’t stopped the Ivchenko/Progress Design Bureau’s work “support[ing] the armed forces,” a rep told Breaking Defense.
At this year's Shangri-La Diaglogue, it was impossible to escape talk of the conflict thousands of miles away.
Running a close second to Turkey’s presence at LIMA were a constellation of PRC firms, including large exhibits from four of the major state-owned defense firms.
Underpinning KAI's plan is an overall goal of reducing the company’s dependence on Korean government procurement and to increase sales in the export market.
“Using the Su-34 to drop unguided bombs is like pressing a Rolls-Royce automobile into being used as a taxicab," a former Russian aviation designer told Breaking Defense.
A defense attaché to Kyiv told Breaking Defense that anytime the A-50 was aloft it was accompanied by two or more MiG-31Ks and that there was no telling when or if these aircraft might launch on demand.
One volunteer ferrying supplies and vehicles into the city of Bakhmut told Breaking Defense the Russian forces attacking act "like a zombie army."