A sobering exercise for the Russians has been sorting out the details of their military performance in the two-week conflict with Georgia. At least one Russian Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft appears to have been shot down by friendly fire, says a Washington-based U.S. defense official. Chaotic flight activity during the air war apparently led to Russia's rebel allies firing at them, he says. Senior Russian military officials, both active and recently retired, are loudly criticizing early setbacks in Georgia which included problems in air defense suppression, intelligence analysis and warnings, air attack planning and speed of response. They also point to the deployment of older T-62 and T-72 tanks and outdated armored personnel carriers for the initial push into East Ossetia that were about an equal match for the Georgian armor.
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