![]() ![]() In any event, it’s apparent Su-34s are falling prey to short-range missiles that likely are either TV- or infrared-guided. It’s unclear whether they meant man-portable missiles or air-defense vehicles. Officials in Kyiv a week later attributed another alleged Su-34 shoot-down to “mobile” air-defense units. Ukrainian officials on March 18 claimed troops firing a shoulder-launched Stinger missile destroyed one Su-34. Only one of Russia’s fixed-wing type has suffered worse in the current war-the subsonic Su-25 close-air-support jet, which flies even lower and slower than the Su-34 does. If four Su-34 losses are evident in photos and videos from the front lines, you can safely assume additional losses have occurred but aren’t well-documented. The Ukrainians reportedly have captured alive at least one Sukhoi pilot, Alexander Krasnoyartsev. ![]() Independent analysts have confirmed the destruction of four Su-34s in Ukraine. ![]() That’s apparent not only in videos the Kremlin has released depicting the fighter-bombers in combat in Ukraine, but also in the type’s loss rate. “The bulk of the 300 fixed-wing combat aircraft massed around Ukraine have only unguided bombs and rockets to draw on for ground-attack sorties,” Justin Bronk noted in a recent analysis for the Royal United Services Institute in London. So while the Su-34 can carry guided munitions, it-and every other tactical warplane in Russian service-almost never actually does so. Where the Americans every year purchase thousands of satellite-, laser- and infrared-guided missiles and bombs, frequently train with them and use them in combat almost to the exclusion of unguided weapons, the Russians all but stopped buying guided munitions years ago owing to their high cost and, post-2014, the effect of foreign sanctions on Russian manufacturers of bombs and missiles. ![]()
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