If the land war in Georgia so far seems to be going decidedly in favor of the Russian army and navy, the Georgians seem to be racking up a lopsided score with their air defenses.
Over the weekend, the Russians made a successful advance on land through South Ossetia to the outskirts of the Georgian east-west transportation hub of Gori. There also was a one-sided naval battle — that resulted in the sinking of a Georgian gunboat — in the Black Sea off the coast of the second breakaway enclave of Abkhazia.
However, Georgian air defenses appear to be taking a steady toll on Russian aircraft. Russia has admitted to losing a total of four aircraft (the Georgians claim 10) in the conflict. So far they’ve admitted to the destruction of three Su-25 Frogfoot strike aircraft and a Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber that was flying a reconnaissance mission.
Photos from the combat area show the wreck of the Tu-22 and a Frogfoot as well as a picture of the Backfire pilot in a Georgian hospital. The pilot was Col. Igor Zinov, a 50 year-old Tu-22M3 instructor pilot stationed at the Russian Flight Test Center at Akhtubinsk. (See Aviation Week’s defense photo gallery for photos.)
“Ergo, the Russians are using their A-Team, as expected,” a U.S. analyst says.
Other analysts say the Georgians are probably operating the SA-11 Buk-M1 (low-to-high altitude) and the (low-to-medium altitude) Tor-1M mobile air defense missile systems.
“The Russians have gone to great lengths to try and implicate the Ukraine in the Russian Air Force losses, even going as far as to suggest that an SA-5 sold to the Georgians by the Ukraine was responsible for the Backfire loss,” a second U.S. analyst says. “That’s clearly not the case, but shows the Russian attempt to bring the Ukraine into the periphery of this event by implication, and to attempt to explain how one of their premier long-range attack assets could have been shot down so easily.
“The Russian press has been making lots of noise about the BUK and TOR systems, and I would say that the BUK is the most likely culprit for all of these aircraft losses,” the analyst says. “If so, it points out a major flaw in the Russian plan — not gaining [and] maintaining pure air superiority [and] dominance over the battlespace by taking out the Georgian air defenses and air defense network before they went into the conflict.“
Russian-built and designed air defenses are apparently exploitable, as was shown in the Israeli Air Force’s total shut down of Syrian air defenses prior to bombing a suspected nuclear site. But Russia apparently has yet to apply the digital keys to unlock the Georgians’ network.
During the months before the conflict, the Russians claimed to have shot down several Hermes 450 UAVs (made by Israeli-based Elbit) with fighter aircraft stationed at least temporarily in South Ossetia.
The Russians say they shot down a Georgian Frogfoot outside the town of Eredvi in South Ossetia today. The Russians — in a stunning piece of irony — have twice bombed the Su-25 Frogfoot manufacturing plant on the outskirts of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
Read the rest of this story from Aviation Week at Military.com.
– Aviation Week
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, the latest georgian claim for downed planes was 19
This report seems pretty hard to square with these:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/47618.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/47815.html
I find it very interesting that the Russians haven’t been able to disable the Georgian anti-air assets that are in the region and i am curious if the U.S. or israeli governments have actually been able to render them unbreakable by the Russians somehow. Either by reprogramming/reflashing thier computers or coming up with some type of crypto the Russians simply can not tackle.
As this thing seems to be coming to an end, the NATO nations are thinking of a punishment for Russia’s activities. The stuff they are thinking of doing seems like empty token things.
I think that Russia should be forced to pay for the damage that they caused in the areas nowhere near the break away zones. Hell, make them rebuild the schools and other buildings too…
“I think that Russia should be forced to pay for the damage that they caused in the areas”
What are you talking about?
Italy and Finnland have already sided with Russia criticing the anti-russian bias in the UE and are ok with the russian suggestion of bringing the georgians to be judged at La Hague in the International Justice Sysstem.
It was the goergians the one who attack, stop telling lies!
And when the russians entered, the georgians retrreat a bit and continued to bomb osetia from inside positions in georgia!
The loses the russians soldiers have suffered were for coming as soon as they could before every shelling of osetians villages by the georgians means kids dead, orphaned and now you want the russians to pay for a war that georgia started!
The Russians know that there’s lots of US and probably Israeli ELINT assets in the area. There’s no way they are going to tip their hand on their air defence suppression stuff just to save a few Su-25s. It’s not like they were going to, y’know, lose or anything.
It seems that a lot of Georgian statements have turned out to be either false or stretching the truth.
Lots of military manuals recommend giving good news to increase the moral of your troops. Maybe this is that.
Still the fact that so many aircraft (4 confirmed) were shot down may indicate either that the Soviet SAMs are good or that the used Russian aircraft do not have sufficient counter measures to defeat such missiles.
I’m in no way will defend Russia. However, a few things that make me weary to side with Georgia.
As Russian government presents its case to its own people they went in there because Georgian army was essentially slaughtering civilians left and right and last but not least Georgians were attacking their peace keepers.
Let’s turn to history and see what NATO did when Serbs start slaughtering civilians. NATO brought in coalition forces and ‘explained’ to Serbs what they shouldn’t be doing. Well, Russians did the same thing to Georgia. So can we blame them now?
Secondly, is there a precedent when regular military force (Georgians in this case) was allowed to attack peace keepers with impunity. I’m not a military historian so anyone who can add to this point I will greatly appreciated.
I happened to speak Russian so I read some of the article and watch Russian news. They present completely different picture from what’s being shown on BBC and CNN. I always liked BBC for there independent and objective coverage but I must admit that even BBC was re-playing same video clip for over two days. This makes me wonder is BBC ran out of news in the war zone (I don’t even bother with CNN). Russians at the same time were complaining about western governments and media that they present skewed picture of what ‘s really happening. So, are we really being BSed by our governments and media as to what’s really happening in S. Ossetia? My feeling that the answer is yes.
As to punishing Russia with picking up a tab for all the destructions. According to Russian news channels, Medvedev/Putin are allocating budget for rebuilding S.Osetia though they aren’t the ones who did the shelling of Tshenvali.
Anyway, this is just my two cents/rubles ;-) on this topic.
Fire away gents.
You folks want peace there? Here’s how to do it!
First we have our planes that are based at Incirlik start flying over Georgia and make a no-fly zone for all Georgian and Russian combat aircraft.
Next we start flying UAVs to monitor troop movements from both sides to stop their movements anywhere, with a threat to open fire on either side that ventures across pre-determined red-lines.
3rd, we move the Russian Forces out of Georgian, Abkhazian, and Ossetian Territory and move NATO peacekeepers in, perhaps using former Soviet Republics for the troop contingent.
4th, If the Russians still fail to stop aggression and the Georgians keep signing peace-deals, bring in emergency supplies of Javelins to Georgian Forces to stop Russian Armored forces and start firing hellfires from Predator UAVs.
5th and final measure if all others fail. American Combat Aircraft begin airstrikes against Russian Targets in Georgia, followed by US Ground Troops if need be.
To all of you that say that Georgia needs to be punished, start reading the facts of the story. The Georgians entered South Ossetia after separatists fired on Georgian positions, while the separatists fired from next to the Russian Peacekeeper’s base in Ossetia, with Russian Officers looking on. The Russian forces in the Area entered Ossetia, less than 24 hours into the start of the conflict, including launching Airstrikes from multiple locations and bringing in Long Range aviation assets as well.
After the Georgian offensive was repulsed, the Russians then entered Georgian territory from 2 fronts, both in Ossetia and Abkhazia, which also included taking the largest port in Georgia, the largest Georgian Miltary base, and within 2 days, had siezed the only East-West crossroads in the Country. Even after this was done and Medvedev claimed that he had called upon his forces to halt, airstrikes and ground assaults continued, with Russian forces in the lead, followed by attacks in Kodori Gorge from Abkhaz separatists.
This is about the Oil pipelines. If Russia takes Georgia, all the oil pipelines from Azerbaijan are now firmly in Russian hands.
“First we have our planes that are based at Incirlik start flying over Georgia and make a no-fly zone for all Georgian and Russian combat aircraft.”
Turkey didn’t want any part of the Iraq war(except when they send troops & planes into Kurdestan),do you seriously think they will allow us to fly CAPs in Georgia? Besides,it strongly looks like Turkey’s days as a NATO member & ally are totally numbered & she will line up with Russia & Iran.
For whatever reason,it looks like Russia may extend this into the Ukraine. You also have “Pro-Russian” separatists in Moldova. maybe with the exception of the Baltic States of Lithuania,Latvia,& Estonia,Russia is trying to seize control of all the former Soviet States that became independent after the fall of the USSR.
Seizing the Ukraine & their defense factories will help Russia tremendously.
Maybe we could as a token measure seize Kaliningrad from Russia in the Baltic Sea.
Russia can’t help Serbia recover Kosovo & we could easily blockade(talking about NATO doing this) St. Petersburg & then seize Kaliningrad. However,with the help of Iran,Turkey,Pakistan,& the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member Central Asian States of Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Uzbekistan,& Tajikistan,Russia will be able to blockade Afghanistan.
I completely understand that there are delusional people out there who believe that the U.S. is so powerful & strong that other nations tremble at the mere mention of the name “the United States of America” & all opposition melts away as our opponents flee in fear & terror,& all we have to say to Russia is “F-22 Raptor & UCAVs” & Russia will immediately surrender.
That’s what I call,”strong delusion” & believing a LIE. Those individuals CANNOT present a valid argument as to why the U.S. is so powerful,they can only insult & belittle those who refuse to toe the “Neo-Con ‘Artist’” party line about why we scrapped so many of our weapon systems & how what we have left can still “kick ass” & how “cold war” tactics(like massed armor for instance) are so yesterday because…..because their arrogant asses said so,& you & I would know it if we were as brilliant & intelligent as their arrogant asses are.
A Georgian “air defence network”? Nonsense. The vast majority of reports of the war indicate that the Russian Air Force has been bombing Georgia with impunity – if Georgia actually had a network worth a damn, as opposed to one or two SAM launchers that have inflicted a few shootdowns, all those major targets reported bombed – wouldn’t have eben bombed. I would’ve thought that was obvious. It’s really not a big deal that Georgia’s shot down a few planes, the Russians still have obvious air superiority.
The four aircraft the Russians have admitted to losing so far are three Su-25 Frogfoot and a Tu-22 Backfire bomber.
The simplest explanation is that the Su-25′s lacked precision guided ordinance and entered into the range of Georgian shoulder fired missiles that hit them from behind and below. Their pilots never saw the incoming missile that took them down.
The Tu-22 was lost over Tblisi to an SA-11 that was not jammed because of the Georgian Su-25 strike that took out the 58th Army’s commander on the 2nd day of the invasion.
The Russians could not protect their own armored columns with SA-11′s if they were busy jamming Georgian SA-11s.
The Tu-22 went on a recce mission during that time and got killed by an unsupressed Georgian SA-11 as a result.
Gotta love it, Russia signs an agreement to withdrawl immediatly and they say they are not sure how long it will take. Then they site the Americans in Iraq.
I don’t see how they can relate the two. The US is rebuilding a country, Russia is destroying one.
Russia is stripping the country, stealing and looting. Probably planting all sorts of intelligence devices too…
It is good to see the European nations standing together against Russian aggression. They will think twice before they try to do something like this again. Especially if the countries are armed with Patriot missle batteries.