Ukraine Shoots Down Two of Russia's A-50 Radar Planes. Russia Prepares A Replacement A-50. Ukraine Targets It's Factory

[NickB79]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/03/09/first-ukraine-shoots-down-two-of-russias-a-50-radar-planes-then-russia-prepares-a-replacement-a-50-so-ukraine-targets-the-replacement-at-its-factory/?sh=1665aa5e45a1

A Ukrainian drone damaged an A-50 on the ground in Belarus last year. On Jan. 14, a long-range Ukrainian missile shot down an A-50 over the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Six weeks later on Feb. 23, another Ukrainian missile blew up a third A-50 in the same area.

The Russian air force swiftly grounded its surviving A-50s and scrambled to replace the two or three lost planes. That meant cycling at least one older and possibly unflyable A-50—out of several dozen Beriev built in the 1980s—through Beriev’s Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex in the Russian city of Taganrog, on the Azov Sea coast just 80 miles from the front line.

So of course the Ukrainians promptly droned the Taganrog factory. They obviously are determined to extinct the lumbering A-50 before the Russians can recover the species. The ostensible next-generation replacement for the A-50, the A-100, has been mired in testing for years and may never become a front-line aircraft.

It’s unclear exactly what happened in Taganrog and what the implications are. We know the Ukrainians targeted the Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex late Friday or early Saturday. We can surmise, from Russian reports, that it mostly was a drone assault.

[Wicked Blue]

1. Ukraine is the Roadrunner

and Russia is Wile E. Coyote