Ukrainian Drone Strike Hits Russian Factory Fixing Up Damaged A-50 Spy Plane

An overnight Ukrainian drone strike on Friday, March 8, hit the Beriev Aircraft Company factory in Russia, where the A-50 spy plane is being repaired.

Knewz.com has learned that the spy plane itself was the target of, and was damaged in, previous strikes carried out by Ukraine.

The $350 million A 50 aircraft that was being repaired at the Beriev factory. By: Russianplanes.net via TopWar

Vasily Golubev, the regional governor of Rostov, reported on Telegram that the latest Ukrainian drone strike was mostly thwarted by the Russian air defense, noting that “several UAVs were destroyed on approach to Morozovsk.”

“According to preliminary data, there were no deaths as a result of the massive UAV attack on Taganrog. An Emergencies Ministry employee who participated in eliminating the consequences on the ground was injured. The victim was hospitalized, there is no threat to his life,” the governor wrote.

The Beriev Aircraft Company factory in the Rostov oblast city of Taganrog usually manufactures Be-500 amphibious aircraft, but at the time of the strike was repairing an A-50 Russian long-range radar detection aircraft that had been damaged in one of the previous Ukrainian airstrikes.

The United Kingdom Defense Ministry believes that Russia is trying to bolster its air force by repairing and adding the A-50 and A-50U aircraft to its forces, according to Newsweek.

Video footage purportedly showing the drone strike on Friday. By: Telegram/Serhiy Bratchuk

Although the drone strike is believed to have hit part of the Beriev factory, it is not sure whether the A-50 was destroyed in the attack, as Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.

While the drone attack on Friday, which regional governor Golubev described as “massive,” has not been independently confirmed, Bratchuk’s Telegram post mentioned that the geolocated footage of the attack shows the drones striking at least part of the site.

“This is an incredibly successful operation using kamikaze drones in the rear of the Russian Federation… Such powerful [drone strikes] can seriously interfere with the operation of the plant, and for quite a long time,” Bratchuk wrote in his post.

“The aircraft factory has many products for military purposes, but the most interesting thing, perhaps, is the modernization of the A-50 to the A-50U, the same very expensive and very important aircraft for the Russian Air Force, 2 of which have already been shot down,” he added.

Russia reportedly intends to revive damaged A-50 aircraft to bolster the Air Force. By: MEGA

With a price tag of over $300 million, the A-50 spy plane is one of the most expensive aircraft in the Russian arsenal. It is worth noting that Ukraine reportedly destroyed one of the radar planes in late February.

The plane was reportedly shot down on February 24 while it was returning to the base in Krasnodar Krai in Russia.

Videos of burning wreckage, presumably that of the Russian Beriev A-50M/U Mainstay radar early-warning plane, in the Kanevsky District in Krasnodar Krai in southeastern Russia, which borders the Sea of Azov, have been circulating on social media supporting the claims made by Ukraine.

“The location of the crash, at least 120 miles from the front line in southern Ukraine, could indicate the four-engine, 15-person radar plane either suffered a mechanical failure—or took a hit while operating closer to the front and tried to make it back to its base in Krasnodar before exploding,” reported Forbes.

Smoke billowing from the site of the A-50 crash in January. By: X/War Translated

“As a result of a joint operation of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, another valuable Russian A-50U aircraft was shot down over the Sea of Azov. The destroyed A-50U is a new modernized Russian version of the aircraft,” the press release from the Ministry of Defense read at the time.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that air defenses were able to intercept several drones in Rostov, Belgorod Kursk, and Volgograd Oblasts that were part of the strike on Friday, with Moscow authorities noting a spike in Ukrainian drone attacks deep within the Russian territory, according to Newsweek.