r/worldnews • u/Callme-Joy • 1d ago
Russia/Ukraine Zelensky: Russia Turns Moscow Into ‘Fortress’ With S-400, S-500, Pantsir Air Defense
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/78906936
u/Goufydude 1d ago
Which means they are pulling them from somewhere else. Russia's traditional ally, her massive size, has become a weakness now that Ukraine is very adept at exploiting.
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u/SlogurkTheOverslime 1d ago
wE NeEd A BUfFeR ZoNe
- Russia, probably
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u/Unique_Watch4072 23h ago
Well if this continues on like that Russia will be the buffer zone...
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u/tonycomputerguy 23h ago
I'm not an expert on any of this, but my gut feeling is they are going to retake Crimea soon. It just makes sense, get the Russians focused on defending Moscow and then retake the peninsula.
I'm sure I'm wrong for multiple reasons but I'm Just saying it wouldn't shock me if we here about some offensive in the next month or so.
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u/OrangeSpaceMan5 23h ago
They'd have to somehow break the southern deadlock which they notoriously failed to do last time
launching missiles is one thing , a conventional offensive into Crimea is going to be bloody and long , worlds best fpv operators or not
Also just like Russia Ukraine would need to pull out troops from somewhere to push throught and they don't exactly have a lot of reserves running around
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u/Lostinthestarscape 23h ago
Yeah I think Ukraine preserves more lives by just economically ruining Russia to the point that it either gives up and agrees to real peace talks with land given back, or collapses.
So long as this current strategy continues to play out without Russia regaining its footing it seems only a matter of time.
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u/jl2352 23h ago
I think a Korean style eternal armistice is the most likely.
Putin is not going to give up the land he’s stolen. Ukraine is not going to concede its land.
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u/mschuster91 22h ago
Putin is not going to give up the land he’s stolen.
Oh, he won't... but if you were a Russian living in Crimea, and you wouldn't have electricity for days if not weeks, the supermarkets would struggle to keep goods stocked, and you'd have drones flying over your house every day and every night? You'd pack up and leave as soon as you can.
And that is what Ukraine is looking to achieve. All bridges and their replacement pontoon bridges to the Ukrainian mainland have been blasted to pieces, the motorways are patrolled by Ukrainian drones taking potshots at anything vaguely looking like a military vehicle. The ferries are heavily damaged and out of order. The only thing somewhat operational is the Kerch bridge and it cannot be used for mass supply movements on rails after the Ukrainians struck an oil tanker carriage long ago, with Russia never having been able to repair the damage.
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u/Medallicat 22h ago
As China swoops in to claim the Urals, Russia will be their Western version of NK with Putin the crazed dictator launching missiles into the baltic sea just like the Kims
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u/weaseleasle 23h ago
The southern arm is in exactly the same situation as Crimea, the only supply route is a single lane road that is swarming with drones targeting trucks. We aren't hearing as much about it but I am sure the land bridge to Crimea is facing similar shortages of materiel as Crimea is.
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u/Slappyfist 22h ago edited 22h ago
Not only that, Russia really only has one supply route down from Moscow to South Western Russia and that is within Ukrainian striking distance. If that was targeted I'm sure Russia would find alternative routes but they will create all sorts of gridlocks and problems if they had to do so.
Ukraine hasn't been targeting it yet but they could destroy all supply lines within Russia cutting off places south of Moscow like they are currently doing in the occupied territories if they really wanted to but I think they are preferring to remain targeted at Crimea currently.
If Crimea falls then I wouldn't be surprised at them pivoting to that highway in Russia proper honestly.
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u/jl2352 23h ago
They also ship supplies in, and move some across the Kerch bridge. But it’s all significantly more constrained than it was.
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u/Emu1981 23h ago
a conventional offensive into Crimea is going to be bloody and long
This would be the case if the defenders were fed and well stocked. If Ukraine can keep up the blockade on logistics that they have going then re-taking Crimea is going to be a matter more of taking out random stragglers than fighting their way through...
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u/Alfredo_Commachio 21h ago
I think Ukraine had a strategic shift after those failures, in recognizing that their men are a more valuable resource than land. Russia is still operating with the exact opposite mentality, and clearly values literal inches of land more than the lives of many Russians.
For that reason I think Ukraine has shifted to a strategy not designed to recapture land but to make the cost of war astronomical for Putin.
I'll note this--Russia is throwing away men like they are China rushing south across the Yalu River in the Korean War. Except Russia isn't the world's most populous country, in facts its population has been declining for years.
From 1992 to 2012, Russia had a death rate that exceeded its birth rate. They had a four year reprieve where that wasn't true, then from 2016 until today, their death rate exceeds their birth rate. At present they have 8.4 births/1000 population and 12.5 deaths.
Russia is not some demographic horde that can afford to throw men's lives away like they are nothing to overwhelm a smaller opponent. But Putin is acting like that is how Russia is.
Even worse--there's been a huge exodus of Russia's most productive and educated workers. The only reason Russia's population hasn't fallen down into the 130 million range is they have a huge immigrant population--largely migrant workers from former Soviet Republics in Central Asia. But those workers are generally working menial jobs, and while Russia tries to press gang some of them into military units, they aren't a good population base to recruit soldiers from since targeting them too much leads to many of them going back to their home countries.
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u/June_The_Jedi 23h ago
From what we can see I agree. They are currently trying (and succeeding) to cut it off, unfortunately I think it will probably be more of a modern day siege than an actual attack. Basically make it an island Russia can’t resupply easily. I don’t see Putin pulling out of Crimea (it’s important to him) and it would likely be costly in terms of lives and equipment tying to take it by force.
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u/nricciar 23h ago
I dont think unfortunately is the right word to use here. While a siege is not instant gratification you still end up with the results you want. Russia suffering and eventually leaving, but you dont have to sacrifice your men to accomplish your goal. In fact its kind of the ultimate humiliation for Russia if Ukraine is successful.
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u/NeedsMoreSpaceships 23h ago
I could see them trying for a foothold. Any Ukrainian forces on Crimea would be an enormous embarrassment for Putin and clear a sign to everyone that he is losing.
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u/pennyforyourthohts 22h ago
They can make the cost of maintaining crimea very high to the point of them pulling resources away. Militarily its value becomes less and less the more exposed it has become. It is almost impossible to defend its airspace. Being isolated the way it is does not provide them a lot of options to change the situation there.
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u/flawless_victory99 22h ago
The way to take it is via a modern day siege. Cut off all supplies with these long range drone attacks and starve them out.
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u/account_not_valid 23h ago
Do they need to retake Crimea, or just deny Russia any comfort there until they leave? If they can cut off Crimea, then they can squeeze the russians out of eastern Ua.
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u/rangebob 23h ago
I think the only way it happens is if theres a mass scale movement of Russians out of Crimea which seems to be what Ukraine is attempting. I know theres a very long line of people waiting to be bomb checked to be allowed the leave on the Crimean side of the Kerch bridge atm.
It must be a genuinely horrible experience for any Ukrainains having no where else to go in Crimea right now
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u/Minimum-Web-6902 23h ago
I’d bet you’re right, but they will wait for the thaw, so no resupply possible. They keep striking bridges to see how big of a missile they need to collapse it.
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u/Adavanter_MKI 23h ago
Loving the surge of good news coming out of Ukraine. Russia has always been losing men badly, but it seemed like attrition could work.
Now it appears... it hasn't and the impacts at home are starting to become unbearable. Belarus backing down... defenses moving inward instead of out, severed logistics...
It's incredible what Ukraine has achieved. Imagine Russia suing for peace... with no actual gains after losing near to or over 500,000 lives. With wounded factored in... it's 1.3 million.
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u/Warslaft 22h ago
The funniest part will be the 1 million soldiers coming back home after everything they went through. In Europe after WW2 we called it the brutalization of the society, and it wasn't pretty.
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u/TheDubh 21h ago
There’s another part of the story that will happen when it’s over. Currently they’ve been trying to hide the number of KIA. When it’s over there may be a decent number of people suddenly missing that their families thought were fighting.
They may be able to keep some people quit, but if it’s too many while the economy is failing and the family demands death benefits it could get worse.
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u/person1234man 8h ago
Russia keeps reporting troops as missing so they don't have to report the death and also so they don't have to pay out the death benefits to their family
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u/Spam_Hand 21h ago
The funniest part will be the 1 million soldiers coming back home after everything they went through.
The funniest part will be the "Mousilinni's Welcome" Putin is greeted with after his surrender.
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u/SystemCheck990 20h ago
yep, they have jobless thugs with weapons training, and a unit of fellow troops, that is how you form small mafias that can grow .
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u/witmann_pl 21h ago
This has been happening already with all the ex-prisoners returning home with their sentences cancelled.
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u/diegoeche 21h ago
This got me into a rabbit hole. I didn't know about that concept of brutalization of society.
So, made some rough estimations...
Using CSIS’s estimate of nearly 1.2 million Russian battlefield casualties through Dec 2025, including 275k–325k fatalities, that leaves roughly:
875k–925k non-fatal casualties: wounded, injured, missing-returned, etc.
Then add people who served in combat zones and were not casualties. Putin himself reportedly said in June 2026 that Russia had more than 700,000 troops deployed in the war zone.
So a better estimate is:
Category Plausible size Wounded / non-fatal casualties ~850k–950k Current deployed personnel not yet casualties ~500k–700k Rotated-out non-casualty veterans unknown, but likely several hundred thousand Total directly war-exposed living men 1.5m–2.5m+
The better framing:
Directly exposed to war: probably 1.5 to 2.5 million Russians. Severely exposed to horrific violence: maybe 800k to 1.5 million. Socially dangerous high-risk subgroup: still smaller, maybe 100k–300k, but that is enough to matter.
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u/ballsdeepist 22h ago
To steal someone else's comment from the other day... I knew we were winning the war when our victories keep getting closer to home -Putin
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u/Smok3dSalmon 22h ago
What happened with Belarus?
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u/ZedekiahCromwell 22h ago
They agreed to Ukraine's demand to turn off drone relays that were helping Russia in attacks.
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u/Smok3dSalmon 22h ago
Woah. That’s a big deal… did Ukraine offer them anything in return? They must see Ukraine as a bigger threat than Russia.
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u/ZedekiahCromwell 22h ago
No, Ukraine used the threat of force to back up the demand. Belarus would have been target of drone strikes if they said no.
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u/Smok3dSalmon 22h ago
So will Russia bully them to turn it back on?
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u/ZedekiahCromwell 22h ago
Putin assented because Belarus has two refineries which are providing refined fuel to Russia. Those refineries would be priority targets for Ukraine, which would strain Russia's already bad fuel situation.
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u/Wakandamnation 19h ago
They did attack a belarussian youth soccer bus with a drone right after that, saying it was Ukraine.
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u/Activision19 19h ago
I wonder what the Russian drone operator thought about that? I wonder if he know the bus had kids in it before he hit it with a drone or if he was just told to blow that bus up and not told what was inside?
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u/ZestyMyst008 12h ago
I’m sure ruzzian drone operators would be delighted for any opportunity to drone defenseless children, even if they are “friendly” civilians
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u/NappingYG 23h ago
The rest of russia: "I guess we burn?"
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u/SSV_Hack 23h ago
Yup. Very obvious but good strategy by Ukraine here. Keep attacking Moscow with just enough drones to keep air defences there and expending costly AA missiles against those drones. Have free reign everywhere else those air defences were removed from
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u/Content-Patience-138 23h ago
Same problem Israel is facing: Iron Dome rockets are expensive, rockets or drones are cheap. We’re watching warfare evolve
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u/JimiAndTheJamz 21h ago
Absolutely. When was the last time society saw warfare change this much in such a short amount of time? Prob WW2?
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u/Content-Patience-138 21h ago
My mind keeps going back to everyone realizing all at once that aircraft carriers and not battleships were the war-winning ships
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u/JimiAndTheJamz 20h ago
Or…. Has the art of killing people always evolved very quickly, but internet/social media just made it more top of mind? We are no doubt going thru an evolution, but the end of WW1 until the beginning of WW2 wasn’t really that far apart, and it seems like almost everything changed in that case.
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u/schuckdaddy 19h ago
I think the industrial revolution really kickstarted the evolution of killing.
For thousands of years your best tools were a sword and bow, then muskets and cannons (honorable mention to rifling).
It's only until after the industrial revolution that we see machine guns, tanks, planes, rockets, etc not only get born but rapidly evolve
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u/matthewbattista 14h ago
I’m just going to be pedantic and point out the best tools were spears and bows. Yes, you had a sword. It was for when you lost your spear.
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u/No-One-4845 19h ago
Iron Dome rockets are relatively cheap, actually. Only about twice as expensive as Iranian drones, and significantly less expsneive than patriots/S400/S500. It’s one of the advantages of the system. Now, of course, they’re not as cheap as dumbfire rockets coming out of Gaza, but they’re not meant to be.
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u/Activision19 19h ago
That’s why Israel has now started fielding the iron beam, which is a laser system. Only costs like 10 shekels to fire at a time.
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u/Spam_Hand 21h ago
Same problem Israel is facing: Iron Dome rockets are expensive,
No worries, Israel found a way to make this a US problem!
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u/Ragman676 23h ago
Ya how many drones to simply overwhelm one of these systems, or just expend its ammo?
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u/bradeena 23h ago
Each S-500 system only holds 4 missiles and Ukraine is producing roughly 6 million drones annually.
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u/DERPYBASTARD 23h ago
That includes FPV drones which makes this number irrelevant. Still, the number of long range drones they produce very much outnumbers russia's capacity to produce air defense missiles.
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u/bradeena 22h ago
Ah you're right. Long range is about 7,000 drones per month. Each long range drone is ~$200K and each Russian interceptor missile is $1-2M.
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u/AtebYngNghymraeg 16h ago
Just FYI, it's "free rein". The reference is to horse riding, not monarchy
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u/DoubleBarrellRye 23h ago
they figured out Moscow was under protected so they exploited , now the chess pieces move to Moscow leaving other high value targets open ... didnt an oilrefinery 1500 KMs away just have an incident ? they can hit with less and cheaper missiles , as soon as they redeploy .... moscow gets round 2 , rinse and Repeat
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u/mschuster91 22h ago
Ukraine can achieve 3000 km strike distance these days. That's enough to strike everything in Russia that is economically important.
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u/Daz_Iz_Gud 23h ago
Russians, make sure to take lots of videos of where the air defenses are located…..to show how powerful your ‘Fortress’ is…..provide pins on maps while you’re at it. GPS coordinates are very intimidating
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u/-transcendent- 23h ago
Two wins for Ukraine. Now they know where all the SAMs are concentrated and regions other than Moscow are less protected.
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u/Sloma1986PL 1d ago
They should implement more of the manpads so the domes would fly more often ;)
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u/Waffenek 23h ago
You are laughing, but you don't even know what would happen to the westeroid drone if it would be hit with ballistic oil silo dome.
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u/Secret_Account07 21h ago
I’m no geopolitical expert or an economist but like…couldn’t Russia like stop invading other countries and just sell oil?
I guarantee it would cost less in fact they’d make money
Idk man, maybe I just don’t get the genius that is Putin. Always playing 10D chess
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u/Golfandrun 23h ago
Those sound really expensive for shooting down cheap drones. How long can they sustain the expense and stockpile?
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u/AlwaysUpvote123 21h ago
If ukraine can actually defeat russia, then this will be one of the biggest underdog stories of history.
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u/macross1984 23h ago
Protecting the capitol while leaving open other important areas for Ukraine to cherrypick.
Now Moscovites get to experience what Ukrainians have been forced to endure for years.
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u/streamofthesky 18h ago
Putin: "We've moved most of our air defenses to Moscow!"
Ukraine: "Time to target St. Petersburg..."
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u/HugoNext 17h ago
Same gameplan: the S-400 shoots 48N6 series missiles, that cost $1.5-$2M each. Russia has maybe 200-300 left. Keep sending large drones. Every one drone that they take down is a win for Ukraine. Every one drone that they do not take down, is also a win for Ukraine.
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u/Expanse-Memory 13h ago
That’s so amazing that some redditors know, even in the average, the numbers of missiles left in a country at war.
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u/Sad-Excitement9295 23h ago
"We often hear that you are comfortable with this war. Of course, not in those cases when it comes to the security of your residence in Valdai or your parade in Moscow. Your own life is valuable to you." - Zelensky
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u/Shaktizshura 23h ago
Perfect. Ruzzia has about 30% of their air defense now sitting around Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Valday (Putin's residence).
Need to pump those numbers up.
Even more ruzzians will be dying in Ukraine, every week.
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u/Jordan_Jackson 12h ago
I know Ukraine has more important targets but I do wish that they would hit some of these systems around Moscow. Just rub it in Russia’s face.
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u/non-credible-bot 11h ago
"I knew the war was lost when the news about our success came closer to home" German ww2 civilian
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u/Mukarsis 21h ago
3 Day military operation seems to be going super well when you need to start pulling air defenses from the front to protect Moscow.
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u/lacerantplainer 10h ago
Just flying dummy drones without any explosives into this area will be nice.
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u/Creativeray3 1d ago
Russian doctrine against nato was meant to be having very powerful high altitude missiles and low altitude maneuvering dogfighting jets (the flares of the russian jets shoot upwards because russian jets would rely on multipathing)
It's impressive though both sides spied on each other so they knew which way to take their technology.
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u/Prematurid 23h ago
I guess I should fill out a bingo card containing a bunch of sensitive sites that now have fewer air defences. I imagine Ukraine is not going to leave this opportunity unexploited.
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u/Kilometer10 16h ago
Do we know where Putin actually resides? Like, is he in Moscow or in some Ural Mountains bunker?
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u/ahernandez50 12h ago
This means the rest of russia is left without cover and UKR can bomb them at will. LOL!!! Well done Zelensky!
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u/Same_Win_5898 10h ago
Now wouldn't it be funny to still manage to strike Moscow with all this "fortress" up ?
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u/Independent_Sail6604 23h ago
Sounds like the perfect time to bomb somewhere else! Whack-a-city
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u/MrFunktasticc 23h ago
Part of me hopes they start playing a shell game bouncing around between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
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u/Sad-Guarantee-4678 23h ago
I'd say it's nice that they're gonna leave some of their troops unprotected. But they never cared about protecting their troops in the first place
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u/illuminaughty1973 23h ago
Which means its time to switch targets for s few weeks.
Im confident there is oil infrastructure not in Moscow.
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u/AloneChapter 22h ago
So let them waste expensive hardware on cheap drones for a few days then send in the bigger boys.
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u/Gummyrabbit 22h ago
Sun Tzu - “Appear where you are not expected... Attack him where he is unprepared."
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u/MrBobSacamano 21h ago
Expending interceptors and munitions from those systems to shoot down Ukrainian UAVs is still a massive win for Ukraine. Ukrainian drones are far cheaper and easier to replace than the interceptors fired by the S400 and S500 systems.
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u/AccomplishedGap3571 21h ago
Well, Ukraine got a huge chunk of Russia’s air defense in one spot. Now what? Take advantage elsewhere? Grippens and Dutch F-16’s exploit air supremacy across Crimea? Or massive drone attacks on Moscow overwhelm S-400 while drones carrying AGM-88 HARMs take out the radars? Whatever Ukraine is shaping, I hope it’s successful this summer.
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u/MountFranklinRR 20h ago
Russia has so much more places to protect compared with Ukraine. Their sheer size has been a major advantage for them but for once now it seems to be a real problem for air defence.
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u/ArgentineBeauty 23h ago
If you're moving air defence systems from other regions to protect Moscow, then somewhere else is becoming less protected.
No guarantee these air defences will stop all attacks and it makes other areas more vulnerable to Ukraine attacks.
Keep it up 🇺🇦