Ukraine War

Russia Loses Key AWACs And An Airborne Command Centre — How?

A huge loss for the Putin’s forces: Russia claims it was friendly fire, Ukraine says ‘We did it’ — who’s telling the truth?

As a wag on Twitter pointed out, AWACS stands for ‘Airborne Warning and Control Centre’ — and that A50 is now a WAC, it’s no longer airborne having joined the Moskva beneath the waves. WACS = warning and control submarine.

Ukraine’s military says it has shot down a Russian military spy plane over the Sea of Azov, in what analysts say would be a blow to Moscow’s air power.

Army chief Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi said the air force had “destroyed” an A-50 long range radar detection aircraft, and an Il-22 control centre plane.

The A-50 detects air defences and coordinates targets for Russian jets. — BBC 15 January 2024

In the information war, so much a component of Russia’s 3 day special military operation now entering its 690th day, it seems that Russian milbloggers prefer to suggest that the losses were due to friendly fire, rather than face the possibility that Ukrainian forces might somehow have taken down more than $500 million worth of their most sophisticated airborne technology somewhere over the Sea of Azov.

The reality that it might have been Ukrainian forces that were responsible is just to painful for them, but could they be right?

I’ve examined some of the stories and possibilities to try and come to a reasoned conclusion. Please note that I am an armchair amateur trying to make sense of events by applying some logic to limited data in the fog of war, but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate my conclusions.

What?

Beriev A-50

One of the planes was a prized Beriev A-50 AWACS with an estimated cost of $330 million, used for airborne early warning and control. It disappeared off radar and Russia has admitted that it was lost at sea. Numbers vary about how many Russia has, even those quoted by Ukraine’s military (6 to 8), but this is a very serious loss to Russia.

The Beriev A-50 (NATO ‘Mainstay’) is a powerful asset and usually flies well away from the front line and any SAM dangers. It had fifteen crew aboard, many of whom would have been highly skilled technicians.

On 17 November 2023, the British Defence Ministry said that it is “likely” Russian forces are updating their A-50 early warning aircraft in anticipation of the West supplying modern fighter jets such as the F-16. The aircraft may also be integrated with the ground based S-400 missile system (Wikipedia).

These valuable aircraft are used to protect the borders of Russia, or wherever it is engaged in terrorist activity, for example supporting the war in Syria.

India operates five of these aircraft, but would they sell them back to Russia? Definitely not, in my opinion.

The other plane hit was an Ilyushin Il-22M airborne command centre, one of which was shot down by a Pantsir system by Prigozhin’s forces during his abortive June 2023 march on Moscow. This recent plane was not destroyed but was able to fly to an airfield and land in Anapa, Krasnodar Krai. It was severely damaged and is unlikely to be repairable in the short term, if ever.

These are cheap ($35 million) as compared to the A-50, but Russia has rather more of them: 18 minus 2 losses we know about. There are other variants in use for ECM but like the A-50 they are irreplaceable, built in the Soviet era with their tooling scrapped. They are at the cannibalising stage of their life cycle.

The Il-22M (NATO “Coot-B) is a derivative of the Il-18 turboprop airliner. It was developed during the Cold War to serve as an airborne command post, coordinating and controlling military operations from the sky. When operational it carries senior battlefield commanders ant there are reports of injuries during the recent attack.

The rudder damage appears to be typical of that from a proximity-fused AA missile. There were also reports about two of the engines having been damaged.

It’s interesting that this appears to be an official photo released to the media. I wonder why?

Here’s a picture of an operational Il-22M:

I noted the lack of antenna housing on the rudder of the damaged aircraft. Shot off or never fitted? We’ll probably never know.

Where?

The attacks occurred over the Sea of Azov.

The Sea of Azov is a body of water ‘inside’ the Kerch Bridge and assumed to be under the complete control of Russian forces. It has several Ukrainian ports of military importance in the current conflict (such as Henichesk, Berdyansk and Mariupol all controlled by Russian invaders) and lies at the mouth of the River Don, a key Russian waterway which has shipyards and leads into the very heart of western Russia.

To provide a geographical context I’ve used a Deep State map as a base and overlaid tracking data for the planes which I obtained from United24Media on Telegram. Apologies for the quick and dirty .gif.

These planes usually have fighter cover which are not visible in this part of the clip. The plane in blue is believed to be the A-50, you can see it disappear about 20 miles off the mainland. The Il-22M also disappeared off radar before eventually landing in Anapa, which I have highlighted in red. Red dots show positions of last radar contact.

The original tracking video can be viewed on your browser (Telegram). It’s not easy to see in the gif, but the track of the IL-22 was very ‘jagged’ before it went off radar, suggesting a struggle with the controls.

Later the pilot of an Su-30 aircraft of the Russian Air Force detected the fire and crash of an unidentified aircraft in the area, presumably the A-50 (Wikipedia, ibid.)

Explanations

There have been several aircraft losses recently by Russia, including a Sukhoi Su-24M supersonic bomber near Snake Island (unexplained) and on 22 December 2023, reports emerged that three Su-34s were shot in southern Ukraine by surface-to-air missiles. These were surprising to Russia and the general public. And now we have the latest takedowns.

There are several possible explanations that occur to me. The one that I am certain we can exclude is launch from a surface vessel either outside or inside the Kerch Bridge.

Own goal

Two large aircraft being hit at the same time makes it unlikely that this was a friendly fire incident. They would have been clearly visible to their fighter in the prevailing conditions, indeed there are videos of their contrails available.

There are a range of Russian SAM missiles deployed on the mainland and in Crimea — Buk, Pantsir, S400 and so on. The Kerch Bridge has several Pantsir batteries and intriguingly there are reports that the Kerch Bridge was closed to traffic around the time of the incident. Could there have been a disjoin between air defences in Crimea and the mainland?

I think that friendly fire is a very unlikely explanation, given that Russian air defences would have known about the operation, that the targets were much larger than cruise missiles and that they would have encrypted IFF military transponders identifiable to air defence radars and friendly SAMs alike. The targeted aircraft had been running their racetrack patrols for some time and so they were ‘old’ or mature targets.

Sabotage

By this I mean a Russian air defence crew who acted to take down the aircraft; alternatively infiltration by Ukrainian special forces. For the technical reasons I outlined earlier this would be very unlikely to succeed.

Patriot PAC-2

The point of disappearance of the A-50 is just within the Patriot PAC2 range of 99 miles from the nearest Ukrainian front line near Robotyne. We know that Ukraine has Patriot PAC2 batteries. They could have chanced a quick excursion of one launch unit — the Patriot is capable of launch platform dispersal and this was an aspect I looked at for the takedown of the Su-24 off Snake Island, but concluded it was unlikely given the marshy terrain of the Danube Delta.

This is a very likely possibility. However, there have been no reports from Russian milbloggers about missile sightings but that could have been affected by cloud cover. Nor have there been any reports of radars being triggered by missiles.

F-16?

This too is a very tantalising possibility. It is suspected that there are F-16s operating in Ukraine but armed with the AMRAAM AIM-120 missiles and what we know about their range an F-16 would have to be operating over Russian-controlled territory to be able to reach the A-50’s ‘racetrack’.

I’d like to think that with cloud cover it would be invisible to spotters but it’s not a particularly stealthy aircraft and Russian radars would surely have detected it and any missiles it launched.

ManPads

There has been some speculation about man-portable air defence weapons (Manpads) such as Stingers or Strelas, but even if Ukrainian special forces had reached the edge of the Sea of Azov in a covert operation there are no Manpads with the 25+ mile range that would be necessary.

However, there is a sandy spit which extends out for 10 miles southwest from Berdyansk. It is a popular tourist area along a road known as Makarova Street. A Manpad launched from the end of the spit would be able to reach the last known position of the A-50, but a launch from here would surely have been visible to the public, and reported.

Russian milbloggers on Telegram have been suggesting yet again that the British SAS was behind this attack. Maybe in planning if it was down to Manpads, but I cannot see the SAS in Berdyansk — not yet anyway.

Ukraine hack of Russian air defence systems

Although unlikely, this is my favourite explanation not least because it was part of a plot in one of my novels based around a female Ukrainian hacker. Ukraine has an outstanding cyber army with many specialists around the world, but could they hack a Russian SAM system remotely? My character hacked a Buk SAM system, but that was in a novel. Much easier written than done. Unlikely in real life.

Conclusion?

It has to come down to the Patriot PAC2. That is by far the most probable explanation. Nevertheless the lack of social media chat about radar detection is strange. Russia would not want to admit it but news would surely have leaked out through the milblogger channels.

But you never know, Ukraine continues to surprise us with inventive approaches to enhancing and using old weapon systems — and new ones too.

Naturally, neither General Zaluzhny nor Lt General Kyrylo Budhanov are disclosing their hand, beyond claiming that Ukraine ‘shot down’ the A-50 and damaged the Il-22M.

Meantime in Moscow, Putin is said to be rather angry. Ukraine may be slow in recovering territory, but it’s certainly hitting the heart of Russian military capability. Hard and painfully.

Update: Here’s one solution that I didn’t identify:

Round up of Russian SAM systems: