Details are fairly scant at this point but the head of Ukraine’s air force has confirmed it on telegram.
Total value of that is > $120M USD. Nom nom nom.
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The key part here are the three pilots. Russia has more planes then trained pilots, so destroying flying aircraft is a much better thing, then hitting them on the ground. Still 120million or so is going to hurt.
I have been told the Patriot biases the cockpit as well. Much more effective damage.
Yay! Each of these is irreplaceable for Russia, so huge win.
Why are they irreplaceable for Russia?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-34
Since 2006 they’ve built 150 units. That’s 8 units a year. Some were sold, some got lost.
As of 20 May 2023, there have been 20 visually confirmed cases of Su-34s being lost, damaged or abandoned by Russian forces since the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. 23 now, apparently.
At their price, with sanctions, with wear of the remaining ones, at this rate, they might not have any left very soon.
At this rate it takes some 9 years though, but I guess there’s a certain threshold after which it is more dangerous to fly for them.
It would be 9 years, if only one linear factor was at play.
I believe it’s multiple factors, though.
One is that every plane taken out had its share of “work”, which is now distributed across the remaining ones. Which means they get worn out a little faster. Similar to how they have to cannibalise parts from one civilian aircraft to repair another.
Then I’m going they cannot maintain the usual production speed because if the sanctions. Add to that an increased need to repair since the plains are more heavily used. And I’d guess that repairs are fine at the same facility that produces them, this also reducing production speed.
In other words, I think it’s about snowballing and at this rate it could be way less than nine years.