The Evolution of the Air War
By 
Terrific interview with a Ukrainian Su-27 pilot:
Like many pilots and other Ukrainians, it took time for Viking to grasp the reality of the war, with the feeling that “I’ll wake up and everything will be over” characterizing what he described as a difficult period in his life. The resilience of Ukrainian non-combatants was also plain for him to see: his girlfriend chose to stay in Zhytomyr, with their cat, rather than leave the country; his parents also stayed at home, and his mom sent a photo of a basket of Molotov cocktails with the message that she planned to use at least one on the invaders.
“They were in a fighting mood, and I was also in a fighting mood, but it was hard…” Viking reflected. “The most difficult thing was misunderstanding. [Due to] the instability of the front, there was a minimum of information.”
As an example, in these early days, Viking’s available intelligence on Russian air defenses was scrawled on a piece of map that he’d torn off, with information vital for survival being exchanged by word of mouth between pilots. The map simply showed the best route into a given area, with circles showing the approximate engagement ranges of hostile air defenses.
Other links…
- The demographics of the Russia-Ukraine War are… bleak for both sides.
- Command and control problems in Ukrainian forces…
- The rise and fall of economic statecraft…
- Interesting stuff on modern naval command and control.
- 2024 was a great year for the PLAN…
- Things are still more sketchy than they should be in South Korea…