SIMPLICIUS Ukraine Situation Report: Ukraine (US) F-16 Shot Down on First Mission... by Ukraine (US) Anti-Aircraft Missle
Well, the quintessential ‘game-changer’ of all game-changers was unceremoniously shot out of the sky on its maiden mission.
As I had stated from the get-go, F-16s were being utilized only in “safe” defensive roles in the far rear of the country to help shoot down Russian drones. Apparently even this task was too great for the poor F-16.
Official report from the Ukrainian General Staff:
But the more shocking detail was revealed when Ukrainian Rada rep Mariana Bezuglaya claimed on her official account that the F-16 was kiboshed by none other than a friendly American-made Patriot missile system. Face palm.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh confirmed the loss but refused to comment on whether it was indeed a Patriot that brought the plane down:
Another top Ukrainian channel stated that the Ukrainian F-16s in fact received the most advanced of NATO’s electronic warfare packages which would have made the F-16 completely “invisible” to the inferior Russian radar technology:
Well, either the Patriot is a superlative radar or the plane wasn’t quite as invisible as advertised.
The truth is, this incident shows several things:
1. IFF is harder than it looks. Either NATO IFF (Identity Friend Foe) systems do not work well, which is funny considering all the jeers at Russian IFF during the claimed friendly fire shoot downs of A-50s, etc.; or the US simply never bothered to give Ukraine IFF codes between the Patriot and F-16.
2. The pro-UA crowd likewise laughed at other Russian friendly fire shoot downs, particularly those that happened during extremely contested air defense missions when dozens of Ukrainian missiles and drones were in the sky. Now they have a taste of their own medicine as they can see that things get quite a bit frenetic and even the best of them can accidentally shoot down their own planes when the radar screens are filled with dozens of targets.
It’s also quite possible—and in fact probably more plausible than the official story—that the F-16 did not gloriously go down swinging, after heroically shooting down several Russian drones and missiles, but that it was infact destroyed on the ground just as the Russian MOD had stated. You’ll recall during the large-scale strikes days ago, the Russian MOD said two F-16s were potentially destroyed in their hangars.
How would the pilot have been killed, you ask?
I would think like so: when the initial missile launches were recorded, Ukrainian pilots were sent to begin scrambling the jets to the sky to keep them out of harm’s way, as is standard for both sides. They know the exact speed and trajectory of Russian cruise missiles and can calculate the precise time they have until the missiles potentially reach the airfield in the west of the country.
The problem is: they can’t calculate Kinzhals in the same way. While they were initiating scrambling procedures, Russia may have fired some Kinzhals which would have reached the airfield in as little as under 3 minutes. Such a hypersonic missile could have hit the hangars even as the Ukrainian pilots were prepping the jets.
All in all, it’s a testament to the fact that modern near-peer, high-intensity conflict is not about wunderwaffe and ‘game changer’ toys. There is no such thing as a golden bullet or unicorn weapon that can really move the needle in near-peer conflict. It’s all about the totality of what your nation as a whole can bring to the table, economically, militarily, productively, and in terms of willpower, political influence, morale, etc. Any single weapon system is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and can be destroyed easily by the plethora of available modern counter-systems.
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Now, the central narrative has fully shifted to the question of “long range strikes” on Russia. It’s clearer than ever that this is the final strategic gimmick Zelensky has left in his bag to stoke a conflict between NATO and Russia.
Listen as CNN explains how top Ukrainian officials are en route to speak to Biden directly about opening up this final Pandora’s box:
There really is nothing left other than to launch massive provocations by whisking ATACMS and Storm Shadows as deep into Russia as possible.
But here’s the ultimate catch that the vast majority of observers do not understand: U.S.’ hesitancy is not about fear that Russia will lose and what “uncontrollable” chaos that would entail, as Ukrainian commentators keep telling us. No, rather it’s the opposite—the U.S. fears that Ukraine may provoke Russia to go “all out”, which would unfetter Putin from his “soft” approach to wage some kind of all out war that would result in Ukraine either being destroyed or totally subjugated.
You see, the smarter American policy advisors know that the only chance the West has to topple Russia, is to keep this conflict a slow boil such that Putin “sleep walks” into a trap, buying time for the regime to foment opposition against him. But Ukraine stands to accidentally unleash the full extent of the Russian war machine—which could encompass an official declaration of war, or simply the abrogation of all former “rules” against striking civilian objects, government buildings, leadership, Kiev in general, etc. This, Washington knows, would lead to Russia definitively occupying all of Ukraine, which would mean the end of the entire Ukrainian project 70 years in the making by the CIA and co.
In short: they want to bleed the bear slowly by poking it over and over such that the bear doesn’t even realize it’s bleeding out; what they don’t want is puncturing the bear so hard that he erupts into a frothy rage and beheads them with a grisly swipe of his claws.
Interestingly, a new Foreign Affairs piece—from the people of the Council on Foreign Relations—argues that it would be militarily futile to allow deep strikes into Russia:
Career apparatchik Stephen Biddle argues that to have true strategic effect, Ukraine would have to combine such long range strikes with some massively successful maneuver warfare advances—which they simply don’t have the capability for at the moment:
From a strictly military perspective, restrictions never help. Giving Ukraine the means and permission to launch attacks deep into Russian-held territory would surely improve Ukrainian combat power. But the difference is unlikely to be decisive. To achieve a game-changing effect, Ukraine would need to combine these strikes with tightly coordinated ground maneuver on a scale that its forces have been unable to master so far in this war. Otherwise, the benefits Ukraine could draw from additional deep strike capability would probably not be enough to turn the tide.
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