On Sunday evening, the latest news from the Ukraine war became the focus of international attention: Ukrainian forces are said to have succeeded in shooting down two Russian surveillance aircraft over the Sea of Azov. While the downing of a Beriev A-50 (NATO code: Mainstay) has since been confirmed, the Ilyushin Il-22M11 (Coot B) appears to have made it back to its home airport badly damaged.
According to current sources, the A-50 is said to have been at Berdyansk, the Il-22M11 further west at Melitopol. In any case, a radio message from the Il-22M11 was intercepted, in which a planned emergency landing in Anapa in Anapa. In it, the pilot calls the airport fire department and rescue services and announces an evacuation of the aircraft. It was later reported that an IL-22 had landed at a Russian civilian airfield with damage and several injured crew members. There were several posts on social media claiming that the pilot had performed a masterful feat and calling for appropriate military honors. There are also reports of a radio message from a Su-30SM – presumably the fighter cover for the high-value targets A-50 and IL-22M – which saw an aircraft “falling from the sky like a candle”.
A post on the Russian telegram channel “Fighterbomber”, which begins with “a tragedy is always a tragedy, especially when it’s on this scale”, suggests that the Beriev A-50 really did crash. According to recent reports, it is a modernized long-range radar detection and control aircraft A-50U with the serial number 93966. The aircraft identifies objects in the air, determines their coordinates and trajectory data and transmits the information to the command posts. The A-50 also acts as a control center, directing interceptors and tactical air force aircraft into combat areas to attack ground targets at low altitude. There are usually 15 soldiers, five members of the flight crew and ten mission specialists on board.
The A-50 is based on an Il-76 military transport aircraft, which carries a Shmel radar unit on its back. The function of the aircraft is identical to that of the aircraft type known in NATO as AWACS. According to open sources, Russia has three A-50s and six A-50Us. The cost per aircraft is estimated at around 300 million euros. https://militaeraktuell.at/generalmajor-dorfer-und-brigadier-promberger-bestaetigt/ The A-50 would be the first airborne early warning system in military history to be shot down and at the same time the most expensive military aircraft ever shot down. In the West, the attempted attack on an AEW&C aircraft is generally classified as a suicide mission with no chance of success. The Russian military blogger “Rybar” first raised the possibility on Sunday evening at 11 p.m. that the downing could have been “friendly fire”, as this has happened several times before. Although this possibility exists in theory, the familiar Russian narrative of preferring to accuse its own personnel of incompetence and failure rather than conceding success to the enemy shines through here. The loss of the cruiser “Moskva” is therefore still attributed in the official Russian narrative to a fire on board and a storm from the sea, although everyone knows that there was no storm on the day and at the time of the sinking.
It is still unclear what these two aircraft were shot down and attacked with. Ground-based, long-range air defense, which is known to be active in southern Ukraine, is of course possible. Speculation also began immediately as to whether F-16s may already be in use in Ukraine. In a recent interview with Vice Admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa, commander of the Ukrainian Navy, one and a half years after the sinking of the Moskva, not provide any information on how this was accomplished. Corresponding post-war literature will exist, but will require the involvement and release of information by higher authorities. The firing and launching of the A-50 and IL-22M will also have to be classified as similar. As long as the technology and tactics used are of military relevance, it is unlikely that concrete and verifiably hard facts about them will reach the public.
In the course of Monday, however, pictures of the Il-22M11’s power plant were published on the Internet. The aircraft is currently located in Anapa. Judging by the damage, it must have been a larger warhead that exploded at some distance from the aircraft. Reason: The blast wave was no longer able to damage the structure. Only the effects of fragments are visible in the picture. However, only the left side of the tail unit can be seen, so a preliminary analysis must remain incomplete. Russian sources report that the aircraft was classified as irreparably damaged. According to unconfirmed reports, Major General Oleg Pchela, deputy commander of the Russian Air Force’s long-range aviation and commander of the Engels-2 airbase near Saratov, was on board the A-50. There is no official confirmation of this.
On Monday, another intercepted radio message from a Russian Su-34 pilot who was conducting an attack flight with Kh-59 stand-off guided missiles was also published. The pilot reported that he was first caught by the radiation of a 300-tka radar and subsequently had to perform an evasive maneuver over the Sea of Azov to avoid a fired anti-aircraft missile. According to the report, Ukraine has an air defence system in the south whose missiles reach at least 150 kilometers. Ukraine has now received several Patriot air defense systems as well as PAC-2/GEM-T and GEM-C missiles, which can reach such distances.
Information: All details of the incident described here are as yet unconfirmed. However, the details and information all come from open sources.
