Former intelligence officer: US doesn't understand how Russia shot down Ukrainian plane
(Baonghean.vn) - Experts say the US is unable to understand how Russia shot down 24 aircraft of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This shows that Russia is changing its air defense tactics, and is also a reminder for NATO countries to consider sending F-16s to Ukraine.
Former US military intelligence officer Scott Ritter said in an interview with journalist Garland Nixon that the US military is unable to understand how Russia can create such a powerful air defense force in a special war zone.
"We still don't know what's going on. We just know that fighter jets are being shot down. We fill the sky with radars and AWACS, to track everything. But we can't understand what's going on. Only the Russians can understand it," said former US intelligence officer Scott Ritter.
According to expert Ritter, Russia's complex and multi-level air defense will shoot down everything that takes off from the enemy in the combat zone.
Ritter is convinced that the air defense systems developed by Russian scientists and engineers will give Moscow air superiority in future conflicts. The former US intelligence officer predicted that all frontline aircraft of the US Air Force would literally "evaporate into thin air" in the event of a conflict.
Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, during a meeting with servicemen of the special military operations group in Vostok, said that the Russian military had used air defense missile systems and shot down 24 Ukrainian planes in less than a week.
Yury Knutov, a Russian military historian and political commentator, said that Russia could have used the S-400 or S-300 long-range air defense system, in coordination with the Beriev A-50 airborne warning aircraft, to destroy the Ukrainian plane.
Expert Knutov emphasized that the fact that Russian air defense systems shot down 24 Ukrainian planes in five days shows "the effective use of air defense missile systems and a change in Russia's air defense tactics". This will force NATO countries to consider whether Ukraine really needs F-16 aircraft or not, as this type of aircraft could face a similar fate./.