Its always interesting to read your posts. You back it up with military experience on the ground. Its easy to say Ukraine will loose or Russia will loose but why and how is very important. Ukraine is backed by 53 Nations and as long as they keep their support I dont see Russia winning. Russia on the other side is alone so will need direct support from China, N Korea, Belarus, Iran, Central Asia or else they will end up having to withdraw.
Russia major issue is the air support. I recall once Usa and Pakistani troops had a border fight, Pakistani troops ended up getting killed in huge numbers because Usa army requested air support and it came quickly whilst Pakistan air support was probably asleep, so their use of quick airpower ended up killing our troops. Usa military might is unmatchable except by China. Russia needs to adapt to a similar way or they will continue to suffer.
The issue I think is more about doctrine.
If you ask me, as a standalone question, Whether Russian Air Force is a competent force? The answer would be yes. But then you still need to answer the question of how you are going to implement that force into the battlefield, otherwise I don't really care if you have the entire Galactica Fleet, it's going to be pointless.
The trouble for Russian force is, they can't get out of their Cold War mentality, the strategy and tactics they use in Ukraine is basically and largely WW2 Soviet Doctrine to the core, massive infantry charge, the use of armour independent to their infantry, which Russia use it as a giant armour fist, and the stand alone Air Support. Those won't fly in 21st century network centric battlefield, Because today battlefield is mostly maneuver base, they key is very simple, you need to get to your destination before your enemy do. That's it. If you can achieve that, you basically will win every battle.
Take Battle of the Antonov Airport for example, the key is to secure the airport before the Ukrainian can organise any defences against the route to Kyiv, which basically is a carbon copy of Operation Northern Delay when we invaded Iraq. Russia try to replicate our battleplan which is to air assault into Antonov Airport, secure the airport, and then fly in reinforcement and threaten Kyiv while tank column assault thru from Belarus Border. In Operation Northern Delay, we use 173rd Airborne Brigade to secure the Bashur Airfield and use it as a shield to cut off Baghdad from the Northern defence and act as a anvil and hammer with the 3rd infantry and the marine with the 2 routes to Baghdad. The difference, however, is that Russia, although comes with the element of surprise, they can't secure the airfield quick enough, because the Armour relief arrived on the 25th, a day later to secure the airport, by then even if Russia captured the airport it would have been pointless. Because heavy fighting have damage the airport enough to put it out of action, and that in turn lay blame on the original Air Assault force for not be able to capture the airport and the ground force arrive too late to cordon off the area.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The issue here is not whether or not RuAF have the edge, they always have the edge, the problem here is how the Russian command apply said edge into the battlefield, if this was the us, we would have a combine strike force to capture Antonov Airport, covered by CAS and Airborne artillery, we would have use the air power as an arm of the combine arms attack, but Russian, on the other hand, used its airpower as infantry support. That's the big different here.
