Introduction

Justin Bronk and Jack Whattling are with the Royal United Services Institute or RUSI, leading defense and security think tank in the UK. They have just written a terrific report on the Russian Airborne Ukraine which we will discuss today. The Russians ran hundreds of air strikes, mainly going after air defense targets but often actually missing them because said targets had relocated. There were quite a lot of fighter patrols ranging up to about 300 kilometers beyond the lines of contact so relatively deep penetrations. But that is only because those ground defenses, those surface-to-emissile systems are still there and active.