Russia’s air force operations near Ukraine are likely to face reduced operational effectiveness after the recent loss of a valuable airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) asset and extensive damage caused to another special mission platform.
Within minutes of each other late on 14 January, a Beriev A-50 AEW&C aircraft exploded and crashed into the Sea of Azov, and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post made an emergency landing with substantial shrapnel damage to its tail section.
Ukrainian commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi claimed the following day that Kyiv’s forces had shot down the Il-76-derived A-50, and also hit the Il-22.
Subsequently, Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umyerov detailed a telephone conversation with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin, revealing: “I informed my colleague about the skilful actions of the Ukrainian military, which allowed the Russian A-50 plane to be shot down over the Sea of Azov.”
Further details about the twin engagement have yet to emerge, but there has been speculation that they could have been achieved by using a relocated Raytheon Patriot surface-to-air missile battery.
Cirium data indicates that the destroyed A-50 – registration RF-50601 – had entered use in the AEW&C role in December 1991. It was downed while flying a surveillance orbit off the coast of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast region – northeast of Russian-occupied Crimea – at 21:12 local time.
It indicates that the Il-22 was hit just 2min later, before its crew was able to recover the aircraft to Anapa airport in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region. Online images of the aircraft, registered RF-95678 and in use since July 1984, show it to have been damaged beyond repair.
“The possible successful targeting of an A-50 by Ukraine is significant,” the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in an intelligence update on 17 January. The AEW&C type “is critical to the Russian air surveillance picture over the battlespace”, it adds.
On 19 January, the MoD said Moscow had “begun operating another A-50” in the conflict region three days after the shoot-down event, “but this time over-land within Russian territory near the Krasnodar region”.
“This activity is likely indicative of a reduced risk appetite for the airframes and an attempt to preserve remaining A-50s, at a loss to its overall effectiveness over Ukraine”.
“Despite no official position from Russia on the loss of the ‘Mainstay’, this activity likely demonstrates a tacit Russian acknowledgement of a successful targeting operation by Ukrainians against a high value asset,” the MoD says. It notes that had the aircraft’s loss been an accident, “then such a decision is unlikely to have been required”.
An MoD assessment indicates that the Russian air force had another eight A-50 airframes available which could “cover the immediate operational impact” of the surveillance aircraft’s loss, but that the equipment and personnel loss would “constrain longer term mission sustainability”.
Cirium data indicates that the Russian air force now has 12 operational A-50s, with the airframes aged between 33 and 40 years. Two enhanced A-100-model examples are also in active use, based on the Aviadvigatel PS-90-engined Il-76MD-90A.
The vulnerability of high-value airborne assets such as AEW&C and command and control posts is a headache for air forces operating such types, due to the proliferation of long-range air-defence systems which can hold them at risk of attack.
The US Air Force, for example, is advancing plans to phase out its aged Boeing 707-based E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) fleet, replacing the type with the 737NG-derived E-7A Wedgetail.
NATO also late last year announced that it will replace its AWACS inventory with the E-7A from early next decade. The UK Royal Air Force expects to achieve initial operational capability with the Wedgetail during 2025, having already retired its E-3D Sentry aircraft.
Published last December, FlightGlobal’s World Air Forces 2024 directory data shows that only 19 of the 161 nations whose fleets are detailed in the report possess an AEW&C capability. It shows a total of 263 such in-use aircraft, with the leading operators being the USA (104), China (41), Japan (20) and Russia (17).
