Battle Damage Assessment: How Many AWACS Planes Are Left In Russia?
Is it a nonzero number?
Ukraine claimed that more that 40 aircraft were damaged or destroyed in their historic drone attack on Russian aviation this Sunday, including one-third of Russian cruise missile carriers. As public source imagery became available, only 13 cruise missile bombers were confirmed as destroyed in Operation Spiderweb. Today, Ukrainian Military Intelligence (SBU) released a video compliation of FPV drone video feeds that includes at least 19 successful hits on Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers used to attack Ukrainian cities.
Evidence confirming more kills will likely emerge. Less celebrated or argued, however, are the An-12 transport planes destroyed. Aviation logistics are a key weakness of the Russian aerospace forces (VKS) even on a good day, and Sunday was a black one. Then there are the two Beriev A-50s, aged but intact, worth more than twenty Backfire bombers each, as valued in rubles.
Operationally, the A-50 is worth its weight in gold. If OP Spiderweb had only destroyed these two aircraft, and not a single cruise missile carrier, we could still call it a smashing success. Airborne early warning and control (AWACS) is a basic necessity for achieving air supremacy. Russia did not have many of these planes left to begin with, while Ukraine has targeted them throughout the war. So how many of them does Russia even have left?
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