If anyone is unfamiliar with AWACS and what they do, this is huge. Like, a really big deal.

AWACS aren’t just big RADARs on planes, they are command and control for air forces. They’re the ones that vector fighters to incoming threats.

In fact one of the enormous advantages that the US has is our sheer number of AWACS. Like, each carrier deploys with two. So considering the Air Force is also going to have them up, if you shoot one of ours down, we’ll have another ready to go.

Russia has nine. Now eight I guess. Really big deal.