The Ukrainian air force has shot down a Russian Beriev A-50 early warning and control plane and an IL-22 command centre aircraft in a significant blow for the Kremlin’s forces, Kyiv’s military chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi has claimed.
The planes are key tools in helping orchestrate Russian battlefield movements.
Shooting them down is a landmark feat for Ukraine in the almost two-year war, as fighting along the front line is largely bogged down in trench and artillery warfare.
Mr Zaluzhnyi did not say how the aircraft were brought down, but Ukraine has received sophisticated modern air defence systems from its Western allies.
He also did not say where the interception occurred, though he attached a video to his social media post with a plane tracker showing two targets disappearing above the Azov Sea, which lies between Ukraine and Russia, north of the Crimea Pensinsula and the Black Sea.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 15 January 2024.
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/HU8oBmeVpQ #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/mLOP37pDWh— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 15, 2024
There was no immediate official comment from Moscow.
Russian war bloggers said both planes had come under friendly fire, though they presented no evidence of that. They claimed the Il-22 was damaged but made a successful landing.
The A-50 is an early warning and control aircraft with a large radar capable of spotting air targets at distances of up to 400 miles. It has a crew of 15. The Russian air force reportedly has been operating a fleet of nine such aircraft.
An A-50 was damaged by a February 2023 drone attack at an airfield in Belarus where it was parked, but Russian and Belarusian officials said it sustained only minor damage.
The Il-22 is an airborne command post, intended to oversee military operations and relay radio signal to troops on the front line. The Russian air force reportedly has a dozen such planes.
Meanwhile, a disgraced former Russian mayor convicted over bribery has had his prison sentence cut short after signing a contract to fight with Russia’s military in Ukraine, local media reported.
Oleg Gumenyuk, who served as mayor of the far eastern city and cultural hub of Vladivostok between 2018 and 2021, was convicted last year of accepting bribes worth 38 million roubles and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.
However, he was released after agreeing to bear arms and fight as part of his country’s military operation in Ukraine that started nearly two years ago, his lawyer Andrei Kitaev told Russian news outlet Kommersant.
He said that the politician’s whereabouts were unknown, but that Gumenyuk was instructed to report to his military unit on December 22nd.
Russia has gone to extraordinary lengths to replenish its troops in Ukraine, including deploying thousands of prisoners directly from the country’s jails. Inmates who sign up for six months on the frontline are pardoned upon their return.
It is not the first time that authorities have used such a tactic, with the Soviet Union employing “prisoner battalions” during the Second World War.
