Sao Paulo
Ukraine said on Monday (15) that it had shot down two aircraft the day before that were crucial to Russian actions in the south of the country and invaded in 2022. “The Air Force destroyed an enemy A50 longrange radar detection aircraft and an air center for the enemy Il22 command,” said the country’s military chief, General Valeri Zalujni.
If confirmed, shooting down the planes would be a major blow to Russia, especially in the case of the A50. A huge radar aircraft with the ability to monitor a 650 km radius in the air and monitor targets up to 350 km away on land, it is a rare part of Vladimir Putin's arsenal.
According to the IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies, London), there are ten of them in the Russian inventory, but it is uncertain how many are operational. None had been shot down during the war a Ukrainian drone landed on the model on a runway in Belarus last year, but there was no damage.
The aircraft costs the equivalent of around R$1.5 billion and is probably the most expensive military aircraft in Russia. Accordingly Sheet According to a Moscow military analyst, the account of the fall is credible, although the country's Defense Ministry has not commented on the incident.
The narrative is confirmed by Russian military bloggers, who are usually well informed about what is happening on the front. According to Telegram channel Rybar, “This will be a dark day for the Russian Aerospace Forces.”
With a crew of 15 soldiers, the A50 is critical to coordinating combat operations and troop movements. The other aircraft that would have been shot down, the Il22M, serves as a checkpoint for forces on the ground, relaying positions and orders.
According to the IISS, Moscow operated twelve of them in this M version (for modernized) at the beginning of 2023, in addition to seven older ones. However, during the mercenary mutiny in June, Wagner Group rebels shot down an Il22M in southern Russia, killing eight airmen and sparking nationwide consternation.
The Ukrainian account in the case of the second plane is disputed by Russian analysts and bloggers. According to them, the plane was damaged but was able to land at the Anapa base in Russia's Kransnodar region.
Both actions took place over the Sea of Azov, which raises other considerations. This stretch of the Black Sea has been under Russian control since mid2022, when Putin established the land bridge between Russia and annexed Crimea.
Until now it was an exclusive Russian area of operation. When shootouts broke out, they had to rely on more sophisticated antiaircraft systems such as the American Patriot, which had previously only been used to protect Kiev and other sensitive regions.
The Ukrainiancontrolled area is about 90 km from the Sea of Azov and is at the limit of the range of older Patriot missile models, which is almost doubled for newer versions. However, it is not known whether Ukraine would risk its main air defense facility in an area so close to Russian weapons.
The likely triumph is a rare piece of good news for Ukrainians, who have endured the worst phase of the war in recent months since the invasion began. The decline in Western support and the withholding of new funds for the country by the American Congress and the European Union threaten to bring Ukraine's defense to the brink of collapse.
Contributing to this situation is the failure of the counteroffensive launched by Volodymyr Zelensky last June, which was aimed at cutting the aforementioned land bridge and concentrating actions in Crimea, as well as the exposure of political feuds in the country be it between the president and Zalujni on the direction of the conflict or in Congress regarding the proposal for a new mobilization of soldiers.
The eventual shooting down of the two planes also has military implications that go beyond the symbolic: they are rare, expensive instruments and of great value to Moscow's operations in the region.
In the political sphere, Moscow intensified contacts with its partners in the fight against the USA in Cold War 2.0. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Iranian counterpart and received in the capital Choe Son Hui the foreign minister of North Korea, a dictatorship that the West says supplied arms to the Russians during the war.