Better late than never but I can't help but feel that America made a huge tactical fuckup on Ukraine by not delivering ATACMS at the start of the counteroffensive. Sure, the minefields and whatnot would still be there but so were the helicopters, which have played a notable role in slowing down Ukraine's counteroffensive. So many lives are lost because of this slowness.

Russia only has a limited amount too, in particular the Ka-52 which is one of their best, Russia touts it as "the world's best gunship" and it's equivalent to America's Apache. Russia only has based on estimates around 150-200 of them built. Ukraine has destroyed/damage 40-50 of them during this war (visually documented losses, could be higher in reality).

Also number built doesn't mean ready to use in a war, some will be reserved for spare parts, some will be used for training, some will be under maintenance, some will be reserved for use inside of Russia only, such as cases of Russia having to defend its own land, some might not even be functional considering the corruption that happens in Russia's military.

By taking the aircraft out, they have less aircraft to pester Ukraine's troops with, they have less spare parts to use. They have ultimately less aircraft to use overall which leads to overuse in their current aircraft, burning out that aircraft from overuse, and replacing them isn't easy at all, it's extremely expensive and complex, often relying heavily on parts from other countries currently sanctioning Russia.

But now, I mean it's still amazing to see but it would have been twice as amazing at the start of the counteroffensive...

As for 21 damaged/destroyed, I'm fucking speechless...

Assuming they will move their shit back even further now outside of ATACMS range, which will make operations even more difficult (longer to back up troops, more flight hours, etc). Unless they're dumb as shit and keep helicopters withing range of a cluster munition ATACMS...Probably not, can't be that dumb. Hope Ukraine can get a few more hits in first. Really picked the perfect first strike for ATACMS...Couldn't have picked a better target.

The one Ukraine is using has a range of 165km at maximum. America has others which go up to 300km.

Maybe they'll surprise Russia with the 300km in the future.

I wonder what china will give to russia next

Nothing, China stays out of the conflict as that would seriously hamper their business interests. And since their economy is in a bad shape right now, that wouldn't be very helpful for them and even result in unrest, something the CCP wants to avoid at all costs.

On the other hand, since north korea has much to gain from a deal with Russia, we might soon see some Ch'ônma-Ho (A T-62-derived North-Korean MBT), P'okp'ung-Po (Another MBT, this one based on a mix of T62, T-72 and T-80 technologies) or Juche-Po (North Korean Self-Propelled Artillery based on the Ch'onma-Ho design) fighting on Russia's side. 

On the other hand, Russia might just give production licenses or weapons tech in exchange for some of the old stocks of T-62 (~1000), T-55 (~2000), PT-76 (~500), BTR-60 (~1000) or BMP-1 (~200) that North Korea still has, as North Korea would certainly enjoy being less than half a century behind in terms of military tech and equipment.

FTFY.

Yup. I'd not be surprised if behind the scenes China is pissed off at how much Russia has botched this, they have to tread a fine line now of their hatred to the West and supporting Russia but not destroying their business interests with the West, every time Putin goes to China he comes back with vague as shit words about what he got from China which basically sounds like nothing.

And China wouldn't want to give Russia any of its good stuff anyway since they're still far from matching America in military power and they're trying to build their army up for a possible incursion into Taiwan in the future but such an attack would result in massive losses for China so they're going to need a massive army and China isn't going to give Russia stuff just for it to blow up in Ukraine.

Those airfields are fucked too.

India Rejects Russia Demands to Pay for Oil in Yuan (CNY USD) - Bloomberg

This is fucking insanity.

Even accepting that the numbers aren't 100% accurate, even if they're off by a decent margin, that's still a ridiculous amount in a single day.