The Ukrainian military said on Friday it had destroyed a Russian A-50 reconnaissance aircraft.
Kyiv:
The Ukrainian military shot down a Russian A-50 reconnaissance aircraft on Friday, Air Force Commander Mykola Oreshchuk said, marking the second time in just over a month that Ukraine has reported downing the advanced aircraft.
“The A-50 with call sign ‘Bayan’ has completed its last flight!” Oleshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s Interfax news agency quoted military sources as saying that the A-50 was shot down over Russian territory between the cities of Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar. The operation was allegedly carried out by the Air Force and the Intelligence Bureau.
Russian news agencies quoted emergency services in the southern Krasnodar region as saying that pieces of a plane were found in swamps in the Kanevskoy district and firefighters put out the fire.
The report did not mention the A-50.
The Ukrainian military said in January that its air force destroyed a Russian Beriev A-50 reconnaissance aircraft and an Ilyushin Il-22 air command post in the Sea of Azov.
First fielded at the end of the Soviet era, the A-50 is a large airborne early warning and control aircraft that can scan for enemy aircraft, ships and missiles hundreds of kilometers away.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, told the Financial Times a month ago that Russia had eight A-50s at the time.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
