In just a dozen days, Russia lost as many combat aircraft in its ongoing war in Ukraine. The losses included three Su-34 fighter-bombers that were shot down on Thursday—with reports of the downing quickly circulating on social media.
The Sukhoi Su-34 (NATO reporting name “Fullback”) multirole strike aircraft is a twin-engine, twin-seat, all-weather supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber, initially developed for the Soviet Air Forces in the 1980s. It was one of the Kremlin’s many programs that were forced on the backburner following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the economic crisis that followed. The program was later revived and the Su-34 formally entered service in 2014. It has been considered one of the Kremlin’s most capable warbirds.
The loss of so many aircraft, including a total of eight Su-34s, can’t be downplayed. That was a point made by David Axe, writing for Forbes.com last week, as he suggested that the Russian air force is losing warplanes far, far faster than it can afford to lose them.
“Russia’s sanctions-throttled aerospace industry is struggling to build more than a couple of dozen new planes a year,” Axe wrote.
It isn’t just aircraft either. Russia has lost thousands of tanks, and upward of 400,000 dead and wounded, with figures regularly posted online and tracked by open-source military intelligence trackers.
“The Russian military is dying a brutal death in Ukraine,” said Harry J. Kazianis, senior director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest.
“I don’t see how Moscow doesn’t need a generation of rebuilding to get to anything close to being able to challenge NATO—if it ever truly can,” added Kazianis. “Russia may indeed get some territory for Ukraine in a peace deal someday, however, it may trade that territory for losing its right to being called a great military power.”
There were times when governments would seek to hide such losses on the battlefield.
However, in the era of social media, it is also nearly impossible for the Kremlin to conceal or even downplay the recent losses from the world, and more importantly from the Russian people. During past conflicts, the official propaganda machine could kick into overdrive and the public in Mother Russia might not know of any setbacks its military had experienced. That certainly isn’t the case with the ongoing war in Ukraine, as even pro-Kremlin propagandists have been vocal in criticizing the handling of the conflict.
Can’t Silence The Truth On Social Media
Since the earliest days of the war just over two years, Kyiv has also managed to employ social media to share its victories and highlight the suffering of its people during its setbacks.
The downing of the Su-34, as well as two of just nine A-50 reconnaissance aircraft, became propaganda coups for Kyiv and came days after the city of Avdiivka fell to the Russian military. Thus even in defeat, Ukraine can craft a positive message—something that Russia has largely failed to do.
“It says that Russia can’t control the narrative outside of Russia and that’s of course because Ukraine is doing a very good job of making sure that they’re leaking intelligence that will get into the Western press and make Russia look bad,” said Dr. Matt Schmidt, associate professor of National Security and Political Science at the University of New Haven.
However, even with some pushback from the Russian propagandists, the Kremlin has attempted to do damage control to make sure that its losses don’t cause widespread panic at home.
“Critically Russia is effectively controlling the narrative in the Russian-speaking world,” added Schmidt, “And that is allowing Putin to be able to continue to recruit enough men to throw the Ukrainian into these human waves, and essentially to allow him to keep any kind of descent down to a manageable level.”
How long that will last has yet to be seen, and the power of social media shouldn’t be downplayed. Nor should Ukraine’s ability to shoot down Russian airplanes and then brag about it!
