- Ukraine downed a Russian Su-34 fighter jet over Kursk amid an ongoing territorial push.
- The Su-34, worth around $36 million, is Russia’s most efficient fighter bomber with advanced tech.
- Ukraine has previously held long kill streaks with Russian Su-34s.
looting happens when your army consists of undisciplined cavemen. it further strains logistics, that has to run both ways now; takes valuable time that could be used doing literally anything else; sets local civilians against you - maybe there are spotters or informants or insurgents now that weren’t there before; makes unit in question vulnerable to some of these civilians’ antics - there were multiple reports of poisoned food being served to russian soldiers by now and i think it could be over 50 fatalities total; not to mention that it’s a war crime
It’s all tied to the old military thinking.
Russian soldiers are not fighting for Russia. Russian soldiers are fighting for their generals. Similar to how Roman armies worked, or… well, really like any army worked until we got to the nationalism level that eventually lead to WWI. One of the most effective ways the generals got their troops to follow them was allowing them the “spoils of war”. Good ol’ raping and pillaging.
By comparison the Ukrainian army is unified in their fight for Ukraine. They’re not fighting for a person, they’re fighting for their people. All the fighting happening inside Russian borders isn’t to secure loot, it’s to end the war so they can go home.