On the evening of January 14, around 22:30 p.m. Kyiv time, the first message was received about the loss of contact with the Russian A-50 anti-aircraft defense aircraft. Some time later, at approximately 23:30 p.m., there was audio confirmation that the Il-22 control center was making an emergency landing at the airport in Anapa after sustaining damage. Almost immediately, reports appeared in the Ukrainian information space that a Russian A-50 was shot down over the Sea of Azov and an Il-22 was damaged. After a brief stupor, this information began to be confirmed by Russian platforms, but with an emphasis on the fact that these planes were shot down by Russian air defense.
Oleksandr Kovalenko, military and political columnist of the Information Resistance group, in his blog, explained analytics regarding the consequences for the war in Ukraine, which will be caused by the loss of the Russian Federation of two important reconnaissance aircraft.
On January 15, at 11:40 Kyiv time, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, confirmed the destruction of the A-50 and the damage of the Il-22, as a result of a special operation carried out in the airspace of the Sea of Azov, the details of which were not disclosed. And it is not surprising.
The fact is that on January 14, a truly unique incident in the world history of wars and conflicts happened. At the same time, planes of very important functionality were destroyed and damaged, moreover, in the deep rear of the occupied territories. This has never happened before. But the uniqueness of this situation is not even that two planes were taken out of combat condition at once, but that it was theoretically impossible at all. And to understand why, you need to know what kind of planes these are and where they operated.
The A-50 aircraft is a long-range radar detection and control aircraft that provided control of the air situation and control of operational-tactical aviation.
Thanks to this aircraft, the Russian troops not only received information about the presence in the airspace of Ukraine of tactical aviation of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of the Ukrainian SSR, but also learned about missile launches from the Ukrainian side, received target designation for their tactical aviation and missile strikes, and even increased the range of damage of air defense systems of the ZRS S- 400.
These aircraft have been manufactured since 1985, but as of today, there is no production of them in Russia. There are a total of 9 such aircraft in the Russian Air Force, but 1 of them is undergoing endless modernization, 2 require repair, and 1 was damaged by an attack drone of the Dzmil radio engineering complex in Belarus.
In fact, by January 14, only 5 A-50 aircraft were fully operational. The cost of one such aircraft is estimated at an average of $400 million, but taking into account their rarity and impossibility of production, it is much higher, and if I say that it can be doubled, I will hardly be mistaken.
The Il-22 aircraft is an air command post with special communications, an army (front) level radio communications relay aircraft that ensures the stability of troop management.
They were produced since 1971, with the following modernizations. Currently, their production in Russia is impossible, as it was stopped way back in 1978.
There are a total of 22 functional Il-14s of various modifications in the composition of the VKS of the Russian Federation.
Both of these aircraft play an important role both in the management of units of Russian forces in the entire theater of operations in Ukraine, and in obtaining timely intelligence information. And the most interesting thing is that the A-50 is responsible for detecting missile threats that could be dangerous for these aircraft.
Well, then it turns out that the Russian platforms are right when they write that this Russian air defense system shot down its own planes due to the allegedly malfunctioning system "own-alien"? No.
Russian air defense shot down A-50 and Il-22?
During 2023, Russian air defense, especially in the DB zone in Ukraine, really demonstrated phenomenal incompetence. Last year alone, the Russian air defense system shot down its own warplanes more than once over the left-bank Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. They were also noted for the destruction of their Ka-52 attack helicopters. But these incidents happened close to the contact line, where mistakes are indeed possible. Although on September 28, 2023, the Su-35S fighter was shot down over the temporarily occupied Tokmak, which is 20 km from the front, but the incident with the A-50 and Il-22 is a completely different location.
A-50 and Il-22 operated a route over the Sea of Azov 150-200 km from the front. Moreover, it was their standard and well-known route. Il-22s, usually up to 6 sides, rose from the airfields "Akhtubinsk", "Rostov-on-Don", "Marinivka" into the airspace and flew over the Voronezh, Rostov, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia regions, including the Sea of Azov. Similarly, A-50s, usually up to 4 sides, took off from the airfields "Akhtubinsk", "Anapa" and "Krymsk" and alternately entered the airspace over the Sea of Azov.
That is, even with a non-working "home-foreign" system, these planes and their routes were easily recognized by air defense operators, and it was simply impossible to mistake them for some enemy fighter with completely different characteristics. Therefore, the Russian version of its anti-aircraft defense cannot withstand criticism at least for this reason. But if it is not a Russian anti-aircraft missile, then a completely expected and non-trivial question arises: what was it shot down with?
Among the available long-range air defense systems in service in Ukraine are the Patriot and SAMP/T air defense systems. The most long-range Patriot air defense missiles are MIM-104F PAC-3 MSE (range 120 km) and MIM-104D/E PAC-2 (range up to 160 km). In the SAMP/T air defense system, the longest-range missile is the Aster-30 (range up to 120 km).
Taking into account the specified characteristics, it is unlikely that these missiles were used on January 14 at distances of up to 200 km. Although it cannot be ruled out that the declared performance characteristics do not correspond to reality, and to a large extent, and what the real capabilities of Western missiles are - it is not known.
On the other hand, the unexpected launch of MIM-104D/E PAC-2 missiles with a speed of 1 meters per second or Aster-200 with a flight speed of 30 meters per second did not leave any chance for the heavy and clumsy A-1,5 and Il-50 . avoid being hit.
It is possible that this is one of the reasons why Russian sites insist that the defeat was carried out by Russian air defense. They are trying once again to hide their shame that they could not intercept and resist the Western impressive means. In addition, reduce panic among pilots. Although lowering panic by saying "it's not the Ukrainians, we fired at them ourselves, by accident" is a very dubious method...
A new stage in the war in Ukraine
On December 22, 2023, three Su-60 warplanes were shot down at once in the airspace of the temporarily occupied left-bank Kherson region, in the Chaplynka area, which is 34 km from the LBS. Such unexpected losses of tactical aviation in the rear area forced the Russian command to temporarily stop flights to this bridgehead. But even then there was talk of a new stage in the war, which would consist in the expulsion of Russian aircraft from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
In 2023, the actions of the Ukrainian army forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to flee from Crimea, Sevastopol to Novorossiysk. In fact, there was a unique case in the world history of wars and conflicts where a country without a navy won a naval battle against a country that had one, but was forced to flee to safer ports.
In 2024, we can witness a chain of other unique events, one of which was the decommissioning of aircraft so rare and expensive in Russia. But this is only one of many episodes of further expulsion of Russian aviation from Ukraine. Ukrainian skies are becoming increasingly extremely dangerous for Russians.
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