I have little doubt that Vlad and/or his oligarchs felt it would be a shame to give up their yachts or dachaus just to make the money spent on a very good aircraft more effective with expensive ‘Smart’ standoff weapons?
Hmmm two engines, wonder if we could buy those instead of the one lung F-35s?
Tim
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/03/29/the-russian…
EDITORS’ PICK|Mar 29, 2022,08:00am EDT|2,565 views
The Russian Air Force Is Losing Its Best Jets Over Ukraine
The Sukhoi Su-34 was supposed to change the Russian air force. The twin-engine, twin-seat, supersonic fighter-bomber—a highly-evolved variant of the Su-27 air-superiority fighter—promised to usher in a new era of high-tech, precision bombing.
Instead, the Su-34s have flown into Ukraine lugging the same old dumb bombs. A lack of precision-guided munitions—not to mention Russian doctrine that conceives of aircraft essentially as flying artillery—forces the $50 million warplanes to fly low through the thickest Ukrainian air-defenses in order to have any chance of delivering their bombs with any degree of accuracy.
As a result, Su-34s are falling from the sky in numbers that must be startling for air force commanders. Their newest planes are suffering the same fate as their oldest.