Тимофей Потапенко wrote:
I think, I can answer about those two questins
1/ Nationality of the fighter. You can definitely notice two vertical stabilisers. So, there are only very several types of planes of that kind there: American F-15 or F-14, as far as I know no one posess that planes in that region; Russian (or ex-Soviet) MiG-25, MiG-29, MiG-31, Su-27, Su-30, Su-34, Su-35. Su-30-35 are VERY rare planes, and MiG-31 exists in a very small numbers, so that is definitely not one of them. MiG-29 or Su-27 can be seen there, and there are surely no those planes in the airforce of Georgia or Abhasia, you can see only Russian "29th" or "27th" there. As to MiG-25 -- it's relatively old interceptor, which was also almost as expensive as F-15, so it wasn't wide-spred in Soviet AA-force, but there were squadrons of them, based in Caucasus, and some of them could be in Gerorgia. That's another questions, that Georgians in 1990s didn't have any good fighter engineers and repairing facilities, so they can hardly make any of MiG-25 fly. So, for me, it was no
doubt, Russian plane.
I think we can be fairly sure that it wasn't a MiG-25 or -31 due to the
high-mounted cockpit. Since, as you say, the Su-30+ variants of the Flanker
are rare (and the -34 is predominantly an attack aircraft rather than
an interceptor), that leaves the MiG-29 and Su-27. Those two aircraft
look very similar from the front and, at the range we see the attacking
aircraft, the only real way to tell the difference is by estimating the
size of the aircraft, the Flanker being somewhat larger than
the Fulcrum -- but, of course, that's not possible because we
don't know how far away it is. If we could get a good look at the
underside, we might be able to determine which aircraft it is from
certain subtle differences, and if we could see the rear end properly,
we'd know from the presence or absence of the Flanker's
characteristic tail "sting" which type it was, but the BBC clip is too
small and taken from the wrong angle for me to tell. The accompanying
story says it was a MiG-29, so I presume that someone, somewhere,
either knows what the V-VS has stationed in that area or could get a
better look at the attacker. I'm not arguing.
2/ Whose airspace was it.
The answer is: Abhasian. Georgians claim Abhasia as there (Georgian) territory. Abhasians don't think so, they want independance, and they almost have it: there are no Georgian army, Georgian police, or Georgian law on there territory. Now Georgians are trying to take the land back by armed hand, Abhasians are preparing for defencive war, but Russians don't want to have any wars next to there border, so, they do what they can to stop Georgian military preparations by any means (let's say shooting down Georgian recon-planes over Abhasia). What is also important -- many Abhasians in Abhasia are citizens of Russia, and need protection in case of Georgian invasion; Abhasia is very friendly towards Russia, while Georgia is hostile; after Kosovo get its independance from Serbia (in complenely the same circumstances) Russian government consider more or less possible for them to recognise independent Abhasia and Southern Osetia (by the way if there were a referenda in S Osetia, they
would choose to reunite with Northern Osetia, which is a part of Russia, rather than being an independant "banana republic").
So Russia is acting in its usual role of "protector of the Slavs"?
Shades of a century ago... plus ca change, plus ca meme chose....
Phil
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