Yama

It's never wise to declare one can't be surprised, it will only guarantee it'll come as a surprise when enemy surprises you.

US Navy at 350 ships yet? How long they have been trying to achieve that? Maybe they should, I don't know, increase taxes so there's money for building new ships?

None of these have been ordered by state, and most of 'projects' seen in public have been twiddled up by ship design bureaus to keep their personnel busy. It's closer to 25. Present war threw a wrench in the roadwheels of every tank project out there, so they're not alone in this though. So they're up-to-date with the modern trends. "We need to lower taxes on the rich, it's good for the economy!" Sound familiar? Any way, at current situation Russia would be foolish to hugely invest on weapons which are not needed in present war.

In practice such aircraft has never been fielded. I think the problem is that air forces don't want their aircraft to be single role. Maritime patrol aircraft have slow, economical airframes, and often they are capable of carrying cruise missiles, but they are also packed with sensors and communication equipment required for maritime roles.

Okay, apparently it was about 15km from border, so a medium range system might have been sufficient (assuming that info is correct).

JF-17 began as sort of 'Super MiG-21', but the development was 'reset' at some point and very little if any of that heritage remains. Unlike aforementioned JL-9, which is very obviously still a 'MiG-21'. Supposedly this is configuration of Azeri model: It actually looks lot more like F-16 from that angle, than MiG-21.

I do seem to remember few probably stuck Bradleys featured in the videos, but Ukrainians themselves think quite highly on it. Not sure how much amphibious capabilities have been used all around during this war?

Older model EriEye doesn't have that great range (I think it's probably like 200 to 250km against fighter sized target). Thus I am somewhat skeptical about its involvement at that part of the front. Also as they are based, I believe, outside Ukrainian borders, flying into Eastern Ukraine would limit its on-area endurance. Unless Ukrainians are way bolder with their use than I thought likely, but I would assume they are carefully protected assets.

Maybe missile attack then, Kh-59 or antiradiation missiles? Or perhaps it was in 'mini-AWACS' mission, as Su-35 with its very wide angle scanning radar is supposedly suited in this role. If doing that, it would be highly visible itself, of course. Hasn't Su-30 been using UMPK too, or am I misremembering things?

Development was parallel to J-10, but there was no guarantee that would have been ever exported to Pakistan (I don't think J-10 appeared in export catalogs before 2010s). JF-17 began as deep modernization of J-7, but that line of development was abandoned. Instead it appears to be based on Mikoyan's 'Article 33' from 1980s: Mikoyan was consult in design phase of JF-17. It's true that the aircraft is relatively conservative, with almost entirely conventional metal structure and only part-FBW flight control system. Given how Tejas has progressed, Pakistani were smart to do it that way. JL-9 (aka FTC-2000), however, IS based on MiG-21. Legacy lives on

'FighterBomber' implied it was shot down, just not by F-16. While not impossible, geometrics of an engagement would not favour Ukrainian side here: F-16 would have to fly low to avoid SAMs, which would seriously restrict range of its missiles (50km would be probably challenging even for AIM-120C from low altitudes). And any 'pop-up' maneuver would be risky. In other news, Russians struck an Ukrainian airfield today, I saw a claim of 5 MiG-29's destroyed. Well, there may have been 5 MiG-29 airframes physically present...at this point I would be surprised if Ukraine had five operational MiG-29's total.

Link on previous page said HIMARS. Range (40km inside Russian territory) seems possible for that. If it's true, it also might be a result of deployment repeated too many times, and enemy prepares an 'ambush'.

AEW is not even necessary for that explanation, Ukrainians still have some mobile early warning radars.

This sounds quite unlikely, as it would require Saab to fly west east of Kiev, which would be very dangerous. I very much doubt Ukrainians would risk their AEW aircraft in that fashion, for same reason Russians have got careful with their AWACS. IF it was shot down by F-16, then most likely explanation would be an ambush against predictable and repeated glide bomb attack sortie.

OK. AIUI, RD-93 is analog, but RD-33MK has FADEC. Of course, analog engine control unit is still 'automatic', so it's bit imprecise. I read two different rumours from Sinodefenceforum, one which said that Block III still uses RD-93, and another which said that -93MA is installed in some airframes. Both claimed 'insider' information Rumour is that China is losing interest in JF-17, and would rather export just J-10.