Russia - threadbanned users in OP

It's worth noting that Russian bomber operational doctrine calls for most of the maintenance work on these birds to take place on the flight line itself, rather than having the aircraft moved to a hangar, such as with the USAF's bomber fleet, or indeed the Irish Air Corps. Just compare the level of facilities at laces such as Minot AFB (major B-52 base), Whiteman AFB (Home of the B-2 fleet) or Ellsworth AFB (major B-1B Lancer base) with comparable Soviet/Russian facilities at Engels-2, Shaykovka or Olenya. Now granted, the US bases have significant numbers of unprotected aircraft stands, including of course the ground alert pads that seem to have come into operation again, but even at Minot AFB, which has comparatively little in the way of infrastructure, there are at least several hangars available for aircraft that need to have work done on them. As for Ellsworth and Whiteman AFB, they seem to have one hangar for every two bombers or something ridiculous like that. Once again, they don't have enough hangarage for every bomber, but enough to keep all the aircraft requiring heavy maintenance protected.

Now contrast that with the Russian bases. There is literally nothing there. Sure, there's a massive runway, quite a few ramps and, in the case of Shaykovka or Olenya significant numbers of remote stands and revetments, but no hangars at all. From tire pressure checks to engine changes and avionics upgrades, everything is taking place on the flight line. That's why you can see Tu-95s without an engine in some of those pictures. In the west, this activity would be taking place in a hangar. And that's also likely why they've brought out the tires. They could not move those aircraft into a hangar even if they wanted to, and these tires are supposed to be a surrogate hangar roof.

To be fully transparent here, from my understanding, any real heavy maintenance work, such as replacing end-of-life structural components, large scale systems upgrades, and whatever the Russian Aerospace Forces call their counterpart to a D-Check were originally meant to take place at dedicated aircraft repair plants located far away from the operational bases, such as at Kazan's Borisoglebskoye airfield. From what I can see, the bases were kept fairly minimal so that they could be brought back to an operational state after a nuclear strike, without having to clear metric tons of twisted concrete or steel from runways and taxiways.

The problem is that when the USSR collapsed, a lot of these repair plants were cowboy-privatized and many consequently went under. At the same time, the economic implosion of Russia left pretty much every arm of the armed forces, including the bomber force, were left cash-strapped, with the priority being put on keeping the bombers operational and introducing a limited number of the new high-tech Tu-160. Completely replacing the maintenance concept just wasn't on the priority list.

"The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has released a new recruitment video targeting employees of Russia's security services and the military."

https://twitter.com/MajedSallem/status/1700098796309365094?s=20

While I havent seen much in last couple days of advances (presuming they are happening) I've seen a lot of footage of Russian armour and units getting absolutely smashed since early September. The Russian casualties the past week must be staggering

This site (again, not sure how legitimate it is but it seems spot on) covers in detail how UAF destroyed an enclave of RuZZian armor.

Slava Ukrainii!

Elon Musk is a marshmallow dildo.

More movement at Bahkmut

I posted this earlier, you might have missed it - Kremlin Propagandists: Ukraine Artillery is Winning, Russia Guns Getting Taken Out – a Lot (kyivpost.com)

Your mistake was trying to read it at all.

Shenanigans? He protected Russian warships that fire missiles into Ukraine on a regular basis.

Ukraine is fighting with every arm and leg tied behind it's back. As such Zelensky has to lobby hard for the gear they need. More AA is being moved to the front, but they always need more. The F16's should, at the very least, force Russian to adopt new strategies, and they should, in theory, benefit Ukraine. It won't be some magic war winning thing, but it's just another step in the right direction.

Ukraine are going into prepared defenses, a sea of mines, kilometers of defense in depth, artillery fire zones, Alligator choppers operating at around 8km out from targets. It's a very difficult task, but incredibly they are making progress. The bar for any of this is entirely up to Ukraine, it's their strategic and tactical choice. It's their country they are liberating, it's the Russian war machine they are destroying in the process, it's the Russian military they are putting under pressure.

In Gadaffi's Libya there was plenty of hangars too., but very few of them remained undamaged that I saw. But they did have them.