AN 124 escape from Kyiv

edyvw

edyvw

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On Friday, AN 124 was seen flying over Kyiv, which, to say the least, was very strange.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/56178

However, that An-124 was stuck in Kyiv since February 2022. It managed to avoid the fate of An-225 and has been repaired numerous times since then.
Then yesterday, July 11th, they flew it over UKR, to Leipzig, Germany, where the Antonov Airlines hub is now.
To say that Russian media personalities are furious is an understatement. For this lumbering airplane to fly over such a large area of Ukraine, and the Russians not being able to do anything, shows that they control only the eastern part of the Ukrainian sky, maybe. The fact that it made it to Poland also tells that they were probably caught off guard by an airplane taking off during the day and just making its way to the West.
AN 124 is crucial for delivering supplies to Ukraine through Antonov Airlines which has 7 of these.
 
SC Maintenance said:
Good.

If you haven't seen the footage of the drone attacks deep in Russia, its worth a watch. Just search "ukraine drone attack on russian planes" or anything like that and lots of videos will pop up.

Given they destroyed the Antonov AN-225 - the largest plane ever flown, I call it karma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
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Yeah, I follow that stuff closely.
I mean, I am not surprised they pulled this off. They are probably the most effective fighting force today. They must constantly innovate.
Russian doctrine, on the other hand, was always: "You don't have as many bullets as we do people."
 
I'm all in for Ukraine, but for what it's worth - the Russians have little interest in downing it, even if they could. Their scoreboard of downing civilian airplanes over Ukraine is already full.
 
goblin said:
I'm all in for Ukraine, but for what it's worth - the Russians have little interest in downing it, even if they could. Their scoreboard of downing civilian airplanes over Ukraine is already full.
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They've downed several fighter sized targets over Kyiv. I also don't think this was considered a target.
 
So how is the a124 needed ? It doesn't bring economies, it's mostly for oversized items that wouldn't fit anywhere else.
Maybe as a symbolic gesture, but otherwise I don't see it.
 
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goblin said:
So how is the a124 needed ? It doesn't bring economies, it's mostly for oversized items that wouldn't fit anywhere else.
Maybe as a symbolic gesture, but otherwise I don't see it.
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How do you mean why AN124? It is their fleet. They can utilize when they want, not depending on other countries logistics. It would be like saying: why do we need C17. We have rail.
 
I doubt that they use airplanes at all to haul weaponry in Ukraine on the last leg of the delivery, is all.

And on the previous legs - say from US to Europe - they'd be unlikely to do it with their own airplane fleet, as this one is more easily "shootable" from a diplomacy point of view - they are already in a conflict with the shooters.

Easier to get away with sabotaging and downing an Ukrainian plane over the Atlantic than an US or German one.

And even if they were to do it - doing it with the 124 would be less smart than with "regular" planes. This one is for oversized cargo that generates income. It's a show pony.

The 124 is unlikely to return to Ukraine any time soon, and the scandal with the destruction of the 224 was that many people were apparently pushing for it to be flown to the German hub too, before the invasion, as the writing was on the wall already.
 
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