The Times: Ukraine shot down Russian A-50 aircraft with Patriot and Soviet S-200 systems

This year, Ukraine shot down several Russian A-50 planes. No one had previously managed to shoot down an airborne early warning and control aircraft. The Ukrainian military had been preparing for this for two years — during the operations, they used Soviet S-200 systems and Patriot complexes.

The Times writes about this with reference to a senior GUR officer, who disclosed the secret details of the joint operation with the Ukrainian Air Force.

In May 2022, Ukraine decided that it would restore the S-200 system and start using it in combat. First, they sought officers who had previously operated the S-200 system, then engineers who could rebuild the complex, launchers and missiles to create a "combat-capable anti-aircraft division."

The first Ukrainian attack with the S-200 took place in the fall of 2023 — then it failed to hit the target because the Russian A-50 aircraft changed its trajectory. However, according to the senior GUR officer, it taught valuable lessons for Air Force fighters to not fear a hostile response to attacks.

"On the first attempt, when we launched two rockets, they saw how quickly we hid the launchers and evacuated — no one even noticed where we were," said the GUR officer.

The second attempt was risky — the Ukrainian military drove the Patriot very close to the front. The lieutenant colonel of the Ukrainian Air Force says that at that time it was about five or six large vehicles, because the radar, the launcher, the power source and the security car were transported at the same time.

During the first successful attack on the Russian A-50, on January 14, 2024, the Russians considered themselves outside the ground threat. They had less than two minutes to react before the missiles hit. Then the A-50 fell into the sea, and the Il-22 returned to the base with a damaged side.

As soon as they realized in Russia that the A-50 was in the affected area, they were taken away during Patriot operations. However, they were still within the range of the S-200 system. On February 23, the crew of the Ukrainian S-200 battery, under the command of the GUR, made another strike, this time hitting a second A-50 about 170 kilometers from the front line.

Using the S-300 system with the radar turned on as a decoy, the Ukrainian military lured Russian aircraft into the range of the Patriot battery, the lieutenant colonel of the Ukrainian Air Force said. He added that being ready to attack only one system, the Russian aircraft could not cope with the number of missile launchers.

"They flew out with joy to destroy the S-300, and then the Patriot appeared. Two of the six were shot down by the S-300 and four by the Patriot,” he said.

Another attack from the S-200 was carried out on the Russian Tu-22M3 strategic missile-carrying bomber, which crashed over the Krasnogvardiysky district of the Stavropol Territory of the Russian Federation, approximately 300 kilometers from the front. The plane crashed while carrying out a mission to launch cruise missiles over Ukraine. Moscow denies the fact that the plane was shot down, claiming that it had a technical malfunction.

"Since then, the missile launch distance has been changed. We chased them away from some of the targets they could attack," said the GUR officer.

• This year, on February 23, the commander of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Mykola Oleschuk informed that Ukrainian fighters had already destroyed the second Russian A-50 aircraft, and in general, this was the third loss of such an aircraft by Russia. Before that, a similar A-50 was disabled by Belarusian partisans at the Machulyshchi airbase in February 2023, and on January 14, 2024, the Air Force shot down the A-50 and IL-22 aircraft.