Putin humiliated as Ukraine downs over $130 million worth of Russian jets in two days

Putin ‘needs another army’ says defence expert

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Russian forces have faced fierce resistance from Ukraine’s army ever since hostilities began at the end of February. They have sustained heavy casualties and substantial losses to their military hardware in the course of their campaign against Ukraine. Despite enjoying overwhelming superiority in both personnel and equipment, Putin’s army has to date struggled to achieve any of its military objectives.

The Russians have not been able to secure the skies and appear to be paying a high price for this conspicuous failure.

Earlier in May, Ukrainian forces successfully shot down three Russian SU-30 fighter jets on consecutive days.

The SU-30 is considered one of the most advanced fighter jets in Russia’s possession and can cost up to $45 million.

Viktor Kovalenko, a Ukrainian army veteran officer, noted: “On May 5, Ukraine’s air defence shot down the third in two days pride of the Russian Air Force, their Gen. 4+ multirole “air superiority” fighter Su-30.

“Its unit cost is $25-45 mln. They keep sending them.”

The Sukhoi Su-30M is a multirole two-seater fighter, broadly comparable to the American F-15E.

It is armed with precision anti-surface missiles and has a stand-off launch range of 120km.

The aircraft can also carry AB-500, KAB-500KR and KAB-1500KR bombs, 80mm and 130mm rocket packs as well as S-25 250mm rockets.

The Ukraine army estimates it has shot down and destroyed 200 Russian planes during the course of the war.

Sergej Sumlenny, a political analyst, calculated that the cost to the Russian Treasury of these losses amounted to at least $5 billion.

He said: “Ukrainian army has shot down the 200th Russian warplane.

“With the price of a cheapest Russian warplane (Su-24) at $25m, the overall cost of only planes losses for Russia has reached at least $5bn, not including the costs for pilot training or the higher prices for fancy planes.”

However, he pointed out that these costs had already been absorbed by the Russian economy.

Mr Sumlenny explained: “The problem: these costs are ‘not real’. It is not what Moscow pays right now out of the pocket.

“It is all the investments already made within the last decades.

“Of course, they had negative impact on the economy, but this impact is already here. Planes were built, pilots trained.”

US intelligence has played a key role in helping Ukraine organise its air defences and target and destroy Russian planes.

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Intelligence sharing by the White House enabled Ukraine’s army to successfully repel a Russian assault on a critical airport near Kyiv at the beginning of the war.

Information provided by US intelligence officials also resulted in the downing of a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops.

A US official told NBC News: “From the get-go, we leaned pretty heavily forward in sharing both strategic and actionable intelligence with Ukraine.

“It’s been impactful both at a tactical and strategic level.

“There are examples where you could tell a pretty clear story that this made a major difference.”

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