A Russian A-50 airborne early warning and command aircraft appears to have been shot down over Russian territory near the Sea of Azov, just over a month after another A-50 was shot down nearby.
Footage shared on the Telegram messaging service on Friday night showed what appeared to be the A-50 deploying flares in an attempt to evade incoming missiles. Other videos state that some debris from the aircraft’s destruction landed in Krasnodar Krai in Russia, a region on the Sea of Azov’s coast.
The Russian state-run TASS news service said that two aircraft had crashed in Krasnodar Krai, but subsequently said that only one aircraft had crashed, without elaborating whether it was a military or civilian aircraft. The news service quoted local authorities as claiming that the fire at the crash site has been extinguished.
Ukraine’s air force has claimed credit for the shootdown, with air force chief Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk thanking “all those who ensured the result” in a Telegram post. Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence published what it claims to be radar tracks of the A-50 over Krasnodar Krai prior to the shootdown, saying it was a joint operation between the military intelligence service and the Ukrainian air force.
Pro-war Russian bloggers have made posts concurring that an A-50 was lost, with Fighterbomber, a blogger believed to be connected to the Russian Aerospace Forces, expressing disbelief as the A-50 was said to be 256 kilometers away from the nearest frontlines at the time of the shootdown.
Friday’s incident follows the January 14 shootdown of another A-50 over the Sea of Azov, with an Il-22M11 airborne command post damaged in the same incident. The Ukrainian military had claimed responsibility for the attack, while pro-war Russian bloggers blamed Russian friendly fire for the incident that is said to have fatally injured some of the Il-22’s crew members.
The shootdown of the A-50 also comes after a series of claimed Ukrainian shootdowns of Russian fighter and strike aircraft over the past week. On February 17, the Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down two Russian Su-34 strike aircraft and a Su-35 fighter, one Su-34 on February 18, one Su-34 and one Su-35 on February 19, and another Su-34 on February 21.
The A-50 is used to coordinate Russian air operations, using the large radar mounted on the aircraft’s back to detect and track friendly and hostile aircraft in a manner similar to Western airborne early warning and command aircraft like the E-3 Sentry and E-7 Wedgetail. However, A-50s have been used by Russian forces in Syria to track ground assets, possibly explaining why those shot down have been closer to the frontlines than Western AEW&C aircraft normally would be.