The Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) haven't suffered a loss like this since the start of the war almost two years ago. On Monday, January 15, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that it had shot down two of Russia's most valuable aircraft: a Beriev A-50 radar detection aircraft and an Ilyushin Il-22 command aircraft.
"Thank you to the Air Force for the perfectly planned and carried out operation in the Azov region!," congratulated Kyiv's commander-in-chief of the armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhnyi in a message posted on Telegram.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the two aircraft were flying on Sunday north of the Sea of Azov, now entirely under Russian control, from where they were monitoring enemy airspace. They may have been targeted by one or more Ukrainian air defense systems, presumably Western-supplied Patriot PAC-2s with a missile range of up to 160 kilometers. General Zaluzhnyi accompanied his message with a video showing radar "blips" coming and going over the Sea of Azov, which separates the Crimean peninsula from mainland Russia.
But the hypothesis of a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile has analysts scratching their heads as they do not rule out the scenario of a Russian fratricidal strike, as has happened on several occasions since the start of the conflict. "To reach the Sea of Azov, Ukraine would have had to position a Patriot missile close to the front line, which is very risky and implausible given the importance of these systems for them," said Jean-Christophe Noël, associate researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and editor-in-chief of the magazine Vortex.
If this loss is confirmed – Moscow has so far refused to confirm it – it will be a serious blow to the Russian air force. Similar to the Boeing E-3 Awacs used by the West, the Beriev A-50s are used by the VKS to detect enemy planes, helicopters, missiles or drones operating up to 600 kilometers away. "It's a kind of big sensor, mapping the tactical situation in depth. This is an essential role in ensuring the safe operation of aircraft," said Noël.
The Russian army has very few of these aircraft. According to the "Military Balance," an annual report published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Moscow has just ten A-50s in its arsenal. And not all of them are operational. Russia permanently mobilizes two of them around Ukraine, over the Sea of Azov and Belarus, which means it needs at least twice as many to ensure a continuous presence in the air. If just one is missing, a whole swathe of Russian aircraft could be blinded. The West itself regularly flies its Awacs over the borders of Ukraine to provide Kyiv with intelligence.
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