some links of interest
One year after the invasion, Robert Dalsjö examines the factors behind the failure of Russian airpower in Ukraine.
wavellroom.com
I agree with the article. Back in WW II Russian air was very tied to supporting the ground forces. The most produced Russian aircraft of WW II was the Il-2 Sturmovik low level attack bomber. The air war on the Eastern Front was fought at much lower altitude than in the west where much of the fighting was around strategic bombers flying at the highest altitudes they could.
You build the force for the kind of war you expect to fight. Russia and the USSR had a defensive stance since WW II and they built a force for defending Russia/the USSR. Their supply system was primarily rail based because they have an extensive rail network that can get supply to frontlines within Russia fairly quickly and easily. They have the most militarized rail system in the world with an entire branch of the military dedicated to running and maintaining the rail network.
In the air they have always assumed they would be outclassed by their primary opponent: the US and/or NATO. So they built that branch mostly around defense or offense on their home territory. The premiere service in the air sector is ground based air defense where they have an advantage over the west in some ways. Both in numbers and in range. The bulk of their air power was built around supporting their ground troops taking back Russian territory lost to a western invasion.
To people in the west, this is a crazy notion, but looking from the outside, the US and other western countries have had some crazy leaders in the last couple of decades. The US did have a president who made up an excuse to invade Iraq and did so. The PNAC crowd who were prominent in his administration believed that since the US was the only super power left, it could do whatever it wanted militarily. Most of the developed world sees that as an aberration of long term policies. The Russians see that as the Americans saying the silent part out loud for a short while.
Then more recently the US had an attempted coup by a president who lost an election (possibly by people surrounding him, but we will find out soon, indictments will tell us a lot). This president was more of an isolationist than aggressively militaristic, but they fear someone taking over the US who is militaristic and has the ability and will to be an absolute dictator. Then they would be facing the same type of problem they faced in 1941 with a much better armed country, though further away.
The leadership of the UK has not been very good the last 15 years either. Though they haven't threatened Russia much.
So Russia built a military to defend against the next Hitler arising in the west. It wasn't built to operate outside of Russia very far. And their offensive incursions before 2014 were either fairly small or did not turn out well (like Afghanistan in the 1980s).
In defending Russian home territory their air power probably would be able to do a better job, but they are being asked to do a job they weren't designed to do. Similarly NATO doesn't have that much ground based air defense to give Ukraine because they didn't build a force for a war with little air power available.
Permission plus the launch codes.
I suspect it's true today, but in the Soviet era there were more steps to launch a nuclear weapon in the USSR than in the US. The Soviets were always paranoid someone would use one of their nukes on the Kremlin.
Are launch codes required for tactical nukes?
They do require a code to unlock them.
bloodyelbow.com
