Russia would obviously not carpet bomb large civilian areas because they need a stable Ukraine after the war. Meanwhile, there's zero evidence that I'm aware of that any large scale bombing campaigns were done in Kursk or that it was the decisive factor there. Even western media openly admits now that Ukraine isn't able to intercept something like 90% of Russian missiles. Western Ukraine is being hammered on daily basis right now.

[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Missiles do not equal air superiority. Iran was able to lob dozens of missiles at Israel and achieved a good level of hits, even with Israel's advanced missile defense systems. Under no circumstances did they have anything approaching air superiority over the skies of Israel. There's a difference between carpet bombing large civilian areas and surgical strikes, but regardless Russia is currently not able to do either in Ukraine even if they wanted to. I don't think this is due to lack of capability; if Russia wanted to, they could achieve air supremacy over Ukraine and bomb at will. I don't think they're willing to pay the price to establish that because they've calculated they can win without it, which I tend to agree with.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yes, being able to launch missiles and drones on daily basis with vast majority of them hitting their targets while the enemy is not able to do the same in response is literally the definition of having air superiority.

but regardless Russia is currently not able to do either in Ukraine even if they wanted to

I'm not sure where you get this notion given that Russia is hitting precision targets every day. That's why Ukrainian energy grid is collapsing as we speak. This is what air superiority looks like