According to new reporting from the New York Times, a Houthi surface-to-air (SAM) missile barely missed an American F-35 fifth-generation fighter, the crown jewel of the U.S. fighter inventory. The F-35, participating in Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis, was forced to take evasive action to avoid the missile.
The incident raises questions about the survivability of one of America’s most advanced fighters, and raises concerns over how effective the relatively unsophisticated Houthi air defense system has been at hampering U.S. action.
The Ukranians have been developing their own in-house weapons systems and have had some really big successes with entirelly homegrown weapons systems: it weren’t western weapons that made the Black Sea unsafe for the Russian Navy even when docked in home harbours and it weren’t western weapons systems that have been blowing up the military and economic infrastructure deep inside Russian territory - Ukranian drones did it.
At the same time, the war on the actual frontline has become drone-heavy and most of the solutions in that domain are made by the Ukranians themselves (not to say that drones alone would win it, not even close).
Ukraine started this war with their pants down and indeed if it weren’t for western systems and ammunition they would’ve lost it long ago, if only because Russia’s depth of military resources was 5+ decades worth of Soviet military kit, but at the same time they’ve been building up their own military production and becoming more and more independent of those, so I wouldn’t be so sure that if merelly the US stopped sending weapons and (more importantly) ammo, Ukraine would lose the war, though if the whole West did that would be far more likely.
Last I checked this was a land war, so kind of weird to talk about great successes in Black Sea which are also rather questionable given that Russian navy still has dominance there. Meanwhile, the amount of military infrastructure Ukraine manages to blow up is minuscule, especially compared to the amount of infrastructure Russia blows up in Ukraine on regular basis.
The war on the actual frontline is still primarily conducted by artillery which accounts for 80% of casualties. However, even in drone production, Ukraine is far outmatched by Russia which does it on industrial scale.
The idea that Ukraine has been building up military production is frankly nonsensical because Russia is able to strike anywhere in Ukraine with impunity. This precludes Ukraine from having large military factories, and at this point Ukraine even lacks the energy infrastructure to run them because Russia has systematically dismantled it over the past three years.
Finally, aside from having shortages of literally everything, Ukraine is running out of manpower as its army is being attrited by Russia. Even if Ukraine was able to produce weapons domestically at scale, which it cannot, there aren’t people left alive to use them.