Ukraine Claims It Shot Down Russian Command Aircraft, Damaged Another
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Krylo Budanov claims that the country has shot down a Russian airborne early warning and command plane and damaged another command plane over the Sea of Azov.
In a Monday interview with the Financial Times, Budanov said that a Russian A-50 airborne early warning and command aircraft exploded after being shot down Sunday night, while a Il-22M11 airborne command post damaged at the same time was able to make an emergency landing in the Russian Black Sea town of Anapa.
According to Budanov, the Russian Aerospace Forces only have eight A-50s in “good condition”, with the loss of one likely to affect Russian aerial command and control activities “around the clock”.
The A-50 is Russia’s equivalent to the American E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Command aircraft. Like the Sentry, it uses a large radar atop the aircraft to detect and track friendly and hostile aircraft, coordinating Russian air operations.
Russian A-50s have actively supported Russian military aircraft over Ukraine since the start of the full scale Russian invasion in February 2022, initially operating from bases in Belarus in the early days of the invasion. According to Suspilne, Ukraine’s air force claimed to have shot one down in April 2022, while Belarusian partisans claimed to have damaged another in a February 2023 drone attack on an A-50 stationed at a Belarusian air base.
Budanov’s comments to the Financial Times followed a statement earlier on Monday by Ukrainian military commander in chief Valeriy Zaluzhny claiming that both aircraft had been shot down, uploading a video recording to the Telegram messaging application of what appeared to be the attacked aircraft vanishing from radar over the Sea of Azov.
Rumors of the destruction of an A-50 initially circulated late on Sunday, with posts made by pro-war Russian Telegram users lending credence to them. Fighterbomber, a channel believed to have links to the Russian Aerospace Force, made separate posts implying that friendly fire from Russian air defense systems was responsible for damaging the aircraft, and that the crew of the A-50 had died after their aircraft was shot down.