The Moonfish and Juice Memorial Thread is about [Ukraine]

V1m

Russia's three-day "Special Military Operation" is approaching Day 1,000 and they're hoping to contain Ukrainian forces before they can get in range of the city of Kursk.

Putin remains a terrible person who has caused dreadful loss of Ukrainian life by starting this war, and has already failed every stated objective in his original announcement of the SMO.

Apogee

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/world/deadly-russian-strike-kills-child-on-playground-ukrainian-officials-say/index.html

Ukraine’s Zelensky fires Air Force chief, days after fatal F-16 crash

Scuttlebutt on Telegram is that the F-16 was shot down by misconfigured friendly AA. No confirmation on that yet, but what a waste of people and material if so.

kaid

Honestly in the middle of a storm of incoming cruise missiles/drones a fighter of a new type in the mix getting shot down by friendly AAA is sad but very understandable fail.

Kipling217

Friendly fire isn't.

Kipling217

This loss only highlights the maxim that the loss order should be : Ammo, Equipment and then as a last resort personel.

The weapons the F-16 carried can be replaced in a week. The F-16 in a year or two if all goes well. Moonfish can only really be replaced after close to a 5-6 years of training(plus 18 years of life) and all you will get then is a rookie pilot.

It is the difference between the West and Russia and why the west(and by extension Ukraine) is so much better at war. Its why the human wave attacks are so fucking stupid.

Fiendishrabbit

Apogee wrote: »

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/30/world/deadly-russian-strike-kills-child-on-playground-ukrainian-officials-say/index.html

Ukraine’s Zelensky fires Air Force chief, days after fatal F-16 crash

Scuttlebutt on Telegram is that the F-16 was shot down by misconfigured friendly AA. No confirmation on that yet, but what a waste of people and material if so.

"Friendly fire" SAMs is a reoccuring theme for this war...

Hydropolo

I agree, but at the same time, some of that also depends on what you are actually trying to accomplish. If one of your goals is to eliminate/reduce undesirables in your own population, human wave attacks suddenly look a LOT better from an ROI standpoint. From a "winning a war" standpoint, as you noted, fucking stupid.

Label

TWZ has a bit on the death of Moonfish as well.

Zelensky Fires Air Force Commander As Claims Swirl Around Fatal F-16 Loss
https://www.twz.com/air/zelensky-fires-air-force-commander-as-claims-swirl-around-fatal-f-16-loss
(The War Zone is a news site focused on military stuff.)

The destruction of one of the small amount of Vipers Ukraine has so far received, thought to be half a dozen jets in total, and the death of one of the few pilots qualified to fly them, has hit the nation hard and sparked controversy over why it happened and whether the actual nature of the incident was covered up.

Bezuhla offered no proof of her claim, which The War Zone cannot independently verify. In its initial announcement about the crash, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said “…together with units of anti-aircraft missile troops, F-16 fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were used” to repel Monday’s massive Russian barrage.

Bezuhla also raised questions about how the information regarding the crash was parsed out, suggesting that the Ukrainian Air Force tried to hide the true nature of the incident. Ukrainian officials only confirmed that Mes died in an F-16 crash after media outlets like The Wall Street Journal reported that news on Thursday. The publication cited a source who suggested that the crash was “likely a result of pilot error.” The claim was disputed by Ukrainian officials, according to CNN.

The Air Force “tried to keep silent and hide information about this case until it appeared in foreign sources,” Bezuhla complained. “This indicates a lack of proper conclusions and an objective investigation.”

As we noted in our story about the crash, reports about the death of Mes emerged earlier this week, but there was conflicting information.

Ihor Polishchuk, the mayor of the city of Lutsk, in northwest Ukraine, issued a statement about Mes’ death. However, that was later retracted, along with some news stories about it.

Initially, there were reports that Mes had been killed on the ground, in one of the Russian missile strikes, while other claims suggested he might have been killed while flying a MiG-29.

Ukrainian journalist and author Illia Ponomarenko, one of his nation’s most well-known people, said a “proper investigation into the death of Colonel Oleksiy “Moonfish” Mes with international involvement is critically necessary, and the Air Force command has just vowed to carry out one. We’re waiting for proper answers on what happened and why.”

Zelensky didn’t mention what will happen with the investigation now that Oleschuk has been fired, but it will almost certainly continue without him.

Regardless of what caused the crash or why Oleschuk was replaced, there are lessons to be learned and many questions that need answers.

Seems there's some complications. Unproven claims, possible cover-up by direct leadership, reporters who may or may not be trustworthy, etc.

One thing is clear to me. An important pilot and airframe went down, and we don't know precisely why. It's early yet, but that confusion itself might indicate the conclusion is something Not Good.

Mortal Sky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDyq95F49BQ

Crossposting from the other more belated thread where I accidentally posted this first, but, the first half of this video is an especially decent little travel doc on what civilian life is looking like around Ukraine

V1m

Silicon Curtain have a look at how the Kursk offensive is bubbling through the Russian media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9wwdwJd-gs

Gnome-Interruptus

Label wrote: »

TWZ has a bit on the death of Moonfish as well.

Zelensky Fires Air Force Commander As Claims Swirl Around Fatal F-16 Loss
https://www.twz.com/air/zelensky-fires-air-force-commander-as-claims-swirl-around-fatal-f-16-loss
(The War Zone is a news site focused on military stuff.)

The destruction of one of the small amount of Vipers Ukraine has so far received, thought to be half a dozen jets in total, and the death of one of the few pilots qualified to fly them, has hit the nation hard and sparked controversy over why it happened and whether the actual nature of the incident was covered up.

Bezuhla offered no proof of her claim, which The War Zone cannot independently verify. In its initial announcement about the crash, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said “…together with units of anti-aircraft missile troops, F-16 fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were used” to repel Monday’s massive Russian barrage.

Bezuhla also raised questions about how the information regarding the crash was parsed out, suggesting that the Ukrainian Air Force tried to hide the true nature of the incident. Ukrainian officials only confirmed that Mes died in an F-16 crash after media outlets like The Wall Street Journal reported that news on Thursday. The publication cited a source who suggested that the crash was “likely a result of pilot error.” The claim was disputed by Ukrainian officials, according to CNN.

The Air Force “tried to keep silent and hide information about this case until it appeared in foreign sources,” Bezuhla complained. “This indicates a lack of proper conclusions and an objective investigation.”

As we noted in our story about the crash, reports about the death of Mes emerged earlier this week, but there was conflicting information.

Ihor Polishchuk, the mayor of the city of Lutsk, in northwest Ukraine, issued a statement about Mes’ death. However, that was later retracted, along with some news stories about it.

Initially, there were reports that Mes had been killed on the ground, in one of the Russian missile strikes, while other claims suggested he might have been killed while flying a MiG-29.

Ukrainian journalist and author Illia Ponomarenko, one of his nation’s most well-known people, said a “proper investigation into the death of Colonel Oleksiy “Moonfish” Mes with international involvement is critically necessary, and the Air Force command has just vowed to carry out one. We’re waiting for proper answers on what happened and why.”

Zelensky didn’t mention what will happen with the investigation now that Oleschuk has been fired, but it will almost certainly continue without him.

Regardless of what caused the crash or why Oleschuk was replaced, there are lessons to be learned and many questions that need answers.

Seems there's some complications. Unproven claims, possible cover-up by direct leadership, reporters who may or may not be trustworthy, etc.

One thing is clear to me. An important pilot and airframe went down, and we don't know precisely why. It's early yet, but that confusion itself might indicate the conclusion is something Not Good.

On the other hand if I lost an extremely valuable asset and pilot in the middle of a hot war, I wouldn’t be sharing details across unsecured media for my enemy to be able to learn from and analyze to repeat.

V1m

You don't fire the head of the air force for not putting the real story out on telegram, but you do fire him for not giving the real story to the president

Edit:

Here's some more positive news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz8yqtvyxbw

Zibblsnrt

Looks like people kicked off multiple Ukraine threads after the previous one ran out of gas. We'll be using the other one over here.