🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russian milblogger Romanov92 reports that Urozhaine, Donetsk Oblast, is now under the full control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Ukrainian troops shelling a group of Russians which is retreating from the settlement of Urozhaine in direction of Zavitne Bazhannya. Cluster munitions also was used.

📍 47°43'41.4"N 36°50'00.8"E (maps)

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🇷🇺 “Russia is preparing an offensive in Ukraine” - Andrey Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defense Committee.

“As for the offensive, it is necessary to create conditions. This process is underway,” he said.

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1️⃣ So many words have been spent underlying the inferiorities in design, sensor suites, surfaces refinements and alike of eastern fifth gen fighters but is it that simple? Are the Su-57 and J-20 just inferior machines to the F-22 and the F-35? Well to a degree yes, this is the case, but as much as there's truth in stating that these fighters have some objectively worse characteristics, fact of the matter is that these lesser eastern machines are to be evalued through the lenses of their role within their countries doctrines, which are inherently asymmetrical and thus conduce such approach to aircraft development.
Lets start with western doctrine which is pretty straightforward: overwhelm any A2/AD bubble with as many stand off weapons as possibile and then penetrate them with stealth fighters supported by older generation platforms in order to strike high value assets (HVAs) like supply depots, airfields, command centers, equipment and troops concentrations and so on, disrupting the opposing forces capability to sustain a fight all the while using penetrating counter air (PCA) assets, that is the F-22 today and Ngad in the future) to achieve air dominance.

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2️⃣ Here's the catch: to do this, western air forces require themselves flying HVAs like tankers, awacs, electronic and signals intelligence (ELINT/SIGINT) planes which still tend to be large, cumbersome, slow and so generally very vulnerable platforms. Losing these assets would significantly diminish western air forces supremacy potential because information gathering, processing and distribution is the cornerstone of fifth generation warfare and is one of the so called enablers of modern air power. It only makes sense then that those are going to be priority targets for the opposing forces, and what better way to asimmetrically counter western air supremacy than through a relatively cheaper fighter, armed with very long range missiles, sensors good enough to track these platforms at long ranges and a radar cross section (RCS) just low enough to not be spotted before entering the weapons employment zone. So if used correctly they are going to be forces to be reckoned with in any real confrontation, well at least if there's going to be a non negligible quantity of them (i'm looking at you Felon). Recognizing this risk we are already seeing a shift in western military aviation towards smaller, faster and in some cases stealthier support assets: for example the implementation of MQ-25 drones as small and stealthy tankers, the development of smaller awacs planes like the G550 AEW or the E-7 Wedgetail, the ARTEMIS program which aims to field a survivable ELINT/SIGINT platform and is already in use around Ukraine but also the development of defenses for non survivable assets like lasers meant to fry incoming missiles sensors and small anti missile missiles.

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3️⃣ Finally I wanna spend a couple extra words about the usually bashed Su-57. The asymmetrical approach followed by the russian designers brought them to incorporate low band radar arrays in the wings and probably in the back of the plane in parallel to the high band fire control aesa array in the nose. Such radars, probably operating in S band, do not have the resolution required to generate a track of an enemy contact and so to guide a missile towards It, but crucially, since western fifth gen aircrafts are designed with high band very low observability in mind, they are able to spot F-22s and F-35s from fairly long distances of around 80 to 100 miles, making the Felon the least likely fighter in the world to be surprised by such planes. Given the fact that in russian air warfare doctrine planes are to be used to create ambushes for SAMs batteries and other planes to maximize western losses, this capability is a first and is very relevant on the battlefield.
In conclusion it is indeed true that eastern fifth generation aircrafts are worse than western designs when compared symmetrically, but when contextualized they suddenly become a very real threat to western air power and are not to be underestimated.

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