Look at the baffled face of the young Russian Air Force Lt. Colonel Ilya Sezov on the left.

Sezov has just received a Hero of Russia medal, same as the guy on the right who looks bit more confident and pleased, which makes sense given the circumstances.

It takes 19 years plus 3 years of officer’s school to earn a Lt. Colonel rank. And let’s not forget another 3 to 5 years of pilots school. Why, Sezov should be at least 40 years old, but he looks like someone who’s still in his 30s. Or twenties.

Something just isn’t right. The guy is too young to be a Lt. Colonel.

The following armed forces affiliated Star TV news story demonstrates in a nutshell the dazed and confused state of Putin’s propaganda.

As your attorney, sorry infotainer, I advise you NOT to drink or eat while reading the answer to avoid laughter-related accidents.

“Ace Ilya Sezov has shot down three Ukrainian bomber aircraft, five fighter jets, three helicopters and two BUK missile system,” the voiceover says.

Looking at the terrified face of Lt. Colonel , one begins to ask himself how does he even manage to get behind the yoke of his fight jet? For he is a fighter jet pilot. Remember this piece of information.

Next we get the background of Sezov’s heroic act that earned him the highest ranking medal in the land.

“One more heroic act the pilot performed while patrolling the Snake Island. He detected an enemy’s helicopter MI-8 flying at an extremely low-attitude. He immediately decided to attack.

“Despite being fired at, Sezov approached the helicopter and launched a rocket. According to Ukrainian mass media, the MI-8 was piloted by deputy head of the Ukrainian Air Force Igor Bedzaj. On board of the helicopter there was a special assault group and foreign advisors.

“Therefore, Ilya Sezov disrupted the capture of the Snake Island and didn’t let Russian servicemen being killed.”

Who’s bombing Russian servicemen in this screenshot from a video taken from a Ukrainian drone? Additionally, despite the eventual departure of Russian military from the Snake Island, Ukrainian army did not capture it.

Take note that according to Russian propaganda, NATO sent foreign advisors in a Soviet helicopter to capture the Snake Island, and deputy head of Air Force himself piloted it. And simultaneously shooting at a Russian supersonic fighter jet. Perhaps advisors were meant to stay in the helicopter and direct the attack via walkie-talkies?

A Death Star destroyer heading for Alderaan with all those Nazi looking storm troopers, when Millennium Falcone jumps out of hyperspace for Captain Sezov to save the day.

The voiceover continues:

“Ilya Sezov is from the pilot dynasty. He chose his path as a child. He believes that it’s not his award but of the whole aviation system.”

Aha, maybe it’s another story of nepotism then, the Lt. colonel rank ahead of time, hero of Russia medal? Let’s listen to the hero.

“On May 7, I was conducting an anti-air defence mission from the command center [long pause and cut]. Information was received that near the Snake Island there was an ongoing landing of the enemy’s paratroopers. At this point I descended to the maximum low-attitude and accelerated to the speed of sound. Visually saw the enemy’s helicopter and identified it as MI-14.”

And cut.

Dude, this is MI-14. You wanted to say, MI-8, didn’t you?

“Momentous appraisal of the situation and one second to make a decision.”

Below is MI-8 or MI-14 helicopter flying at super low-attitude while paratroopers and foreign advisors are landing on the Snake Island, and above is Sezov’s fighter jet.

“The pilot decides to attack the enemy’s helicopter.”

And the pilot passes the helicopter by and does not attack according to the video shown on Star channel.

So wait a second. Sezov received a medal hero of Russia for … not shooting down a Ukrainian helicopter?

Watermark Dnepr Express is of a Ukrainian news website. And that’s what they presented as evidence of the heroic act of the Russian pilot that does not even feature the aforementioned heroic act in the first place. No explosions of the helicopter.

“Heroic act of Ilya Sezov disrupted the capture of the Snake Island.”

But he just flew by!!

“I attacked the helicopter and fired from [pause, followed by a sigh] a cannon.” A cannon! “And then I hit the aircraft with the rocket R-74.”

Aircraft?! First, it was MI-8, then MI-14, and now he hit an aircraft.

Voiceover is back. “Everything took place at the height of fifteen meters above the sea level and 120 kilometres per hour.”

But you said earlier that you accelerated to the supersonic speed. And besides, a SU fighter jet can’t fly below 200 km/hr.

And the hero receives the Hero of Russia award and they don’t salute each other. And it makes perfect sense. Do you know why? Because neither one of them served a single day in the military.

This could be the epitome of the Special Military Operation: minister of defence who hasn’t served a day in the military awards an actor who hasn’t served a day in the military the Hero of Russia medal for the heroic act he didn’t perform in the state that soon might not exist.

So… I would say it’s ICBMs, but partly not for the reasons you’ve probably got in mind.

ICBMs are not tactical weapons- they are basically 100% nuclear tipped, and even if they weren’t, anyone who sees them coming is going to have to assume they are. Further, almost all of the modern ones are MIRV’d. They are also exo-atmospheric targets before MIRV (and likely, decoy) separation, which alone makes them very hard to get at. During reentry they come in at incredible speed.

But the real problem with shooting down ICBMs is the scenario where they are used. Again, they’re not tactical weapons- so anyone shooting them off is basically signing off on a nuclear exchange. That in turn means there’s no reason to hold back- they’d shoot all of them at once. And when it comes to nukes, even one getting through is enough to do you in. Thus, you’d have to stop all of them, which due to sheer quantity is practically impossible against any nuclear armed adversary except maybe North Korea.

There’s also no realistic way you’d stop ICBMs from being launched, in spite of what you might think from playing Call of Duty or whatever. They take so little time to prep these days that it’s just not practical. Most have a launch window measured in minutes.

Cruise missiles are overall easier to deal with, mainly due to the fact that they need something to bring them in range. As you can tell from the ‘Intercontinental’ part of the ICBM acronym, those can be launched from anywhere and hit anywhere else on the planet. Cruise missiles tend to be much shorter-ranged, especially the air-launched type. This means you can theoretically go after the launchers when you see them coming. In fact, you could be a bit proactive and hit those launchers before they even leave base, if you have the ability to do so.

Most cruise missiles fit into one of two categories: the subsonic terrain-hugging type, or the supersonic (or even hypersonic) high altitude type. While they can also be nuclear tipped, most current ones in use are not. Either way, they are usually not ballistic, which is good in some ways and bad in others. On the plus side, they don’t necessarily follow a predictable path. On the minus side, jamming can be effective against cruise missiles as many are GPS (or equivalent) guided. They often have fallback methods like inertial navigation, but this tends to be less accurate. Many also rely on terminal homing, against which decoys or other countermeasures may be effective.

Generally speaking though, the single biggest factor is that it’s a lot easier to get at cruise missiles at all points of deployment: both before launch, and during flight. They’re all air breathing, so you can use anything from interceptors to in some cases even old-school AAA guns to shoot them down. It is also a totally viable tactic to go after the launchers before they’ve fired, which would be ideal. The hardest part in dealing with them is detecting the incoming in time to do anything about it, which is just difficult but far from impossible.

As a young man working on a Great Northern signal crew installing crossing signals at a grade crossing that had had too many accidents, I witnessed a passenger train hit a car. We were digging a hole for the signals foundation. Per protocol when the train was spotted a couple miles down the track approaching at ~70 MPH, he climbed out of the hole since the vibration of the train going by could potentially cause a hole to collapse (about 5′ x 5′ square and 6′ deep). As the train approached, one of our crew stepped into the center of the traffic lane to flag down a car, which had been driving next to the train for about three miles, passed it up then turned right onto the road that crossed the track. She drove around the flag man into the oncoming lane pulled up on the track and stopped on the track to look to see if a train was coming. As she stopped (on the track) she actually looked the wrong way. All of us on the crew immediately took off running away from the track and in the direction the train was coming from to avoid the shrapnel that was about to fill the air. As I heard the train hit the car I dropped and spun around to see, below the passing train, the car spinning away into the ditch on the other side of the tracks. We ran to the car which had been struck by the train as the woman driving it had started to pull off the track resulting in the train hitting her car on the passenger side behind the rear door. One of our crew ran up to the woman who was sitting stunned in her car and said “You are one lucky lady”. She focused on him and replied “lucky? I was just hit by a train!” Had she not started to pull ahead, having never even looked back to her right and never having even seen the train she had been driving parallel to for a couple of mile only 25 yards from her, she would have been dead. Cars literally explode when hit by trains traveling that fast. (NEVER STOP ON THE TRACKS TO LOOK FOR A TRAIN!!! Stop BEFORE you pull onto the tracks! Once you are on the tracks you might as well keep going and not bother to look for a train because what are you going to do if you stop on the tracks then look and see a train coming? You are going to move ahead off the tracks SO WHY STOP ON THE TRACKS IN THE FIRST PLACE???)

The Engineer of the train dynamited his brakes as soon as she pulled onto the tracks right in front of him. The train finally came to a stop over a quarter of a mile down the tracks and the Conductor came running back to see how many people they had killed (fortunately none). Remember, that train was a passenger train. As trains go it was verry light weight and not very many cars. A heavily loaded freight train pulling over a hundred heavy box cars and tanker cars and other loaded rail cars could take over a mile to stop from 70 MPH. Trains don’t slam on their brakes and screech to a halt in a hundred feet like a car.