Russian Beriev A-50 spy plane shot down over Ukraine: The frontline with Jerome Starkey

Russian Beriev A-50 spy plane shot down over Ukraine: The frontline with Jerome Starkey

An American Patriot missile is believed to have shot down a Russian spy plane over Ukraine as the chair of NATO’s military Council warns Europe must prepare for war we’re in har Cube again and this is a scene of yet another Russian my name is Jerome starky I’m the

Defense editor at the Sun newspaper and this is Frontline your latest Roundup of the most important news from the war in Ukraine we’ll start with the shooting down of a berv A50 Russian surveillance and early warning aircraft uh details of which emerged on the morning of the 15th

Of January the uh this is this is a 260 million pound plane that is effectively a flying Air Traffic Control station that can track friendly and hostile planes and missiles up to about 650 kilm away it’s a precious Russian asset one of only nine that was in service uh shot down according to

Ukrainian officials Over the Sea of azov we understand with the death of up to 15 crew on board at the same time an illusion 22m which is a command and control aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at an Napa that is a Russian Airfield uh on the Black Sea and

The Russian and the sort of peninsula of Russian territory that stretches towards uh Kirch and Crimea now this is significant for two reasons uh reason number one is that Russia does not have very many of these A50 aircraft they’re important uh for its understanding of the battle space and particularly for

Enabling uh its fighter jets to launch attacks at Ukraine uh the UK has said that Russia only has eight of them left so in one sense they might be able to immediately replace the one that has gone down but it’s also important perhaps more important because there

Will be doubt uh and confusion and concern over how Ukraine was able to carry out this attack now uh in the early weeks of the war one of these aircraft was reportedly destroyed in bellarus by belarussian partisans who apparently uh managed to land a drone on top of the aircraft now these aircraft

Ones with large discs on top of the fuselage which is effectively its radar um Ukraine had said that up to this point it had been very difficult for them to shoot these aircraft down understandably they are early warning aircraft they are supposed to detect incoming threats as I said from up to

650 kilometers away so what’s unclear is how Ukraine managed to get a missile close enough to this plane to destroy it now there was speculation from uh a number of Aviation experts including Justin Bron who the air power expert at the Rousy Think Tank suggesting that it

Was a patriot pack two gem Miss missile now there are various missiles that the Patriot air defense system can fire we understand Ukraine has a at least six of these Patriot systems they are its most sophisticated air defense system they’ve been used to protect ke the capital and critical National infrastructure against

Some of Russia’s most sophisticated and advanced missiles the Pack 2 missile has a range of about a 100 miles and it works by creating a huge explosion in the vicinity of its Target sending out metal fragments to destroy normally to destroy an incoming missile would be the reason it would be used

What’s interesting is that uh the illusion that did manage to land at an Napa photographs emerged of its fuselage and its tail fin showing them very heavily peppered with shrapnel and those photos the experts were saying appeared to suggest the theory that this was an American Patriot missile that had been

Used perhaps yet another example of the way Ukraine is innovating taking uh the weapons and Technology at its disposal uh to achieve new and often surprising uh and impressive results on the battlefield soon after that we’ve had the warning from uh Admiral Rob B chair of NATO’s military committee warning

That there needs to be a transformation of the alliance to put it onto a war footing effectively saying uh that the member nations of NATO need to prepare for war if they want peace uh they must prepare for war now we’ve heard warnings like this before uh you know the largest

War in Europe since the second world war is unfolding in Ukraine but of course it comes against an even more worrying backdrop in the week since we made our last front line a number of nations America Britain Israel Jordan Iran Pakistan and the houthi rebels in Yemen have all launched missile strikes

Against their respective enemies uh the US and UK launching joint strikes against the houthis about a week ago that was after the houthi rebels defied repeated warnings to cease their attacks on shipping but those attacks have not ceased and we’ve seen a number of missile strikes at least two missile

Strikes which have hit cargo ships one in the Red Sea uh one in the Gulf of Aiden since those air strikes and America has responded with more strikes Iran launched uh missiles and drones into its neighbor Pakistan Pakistan has responded with a similar strike about 48 hours later Iran had already hit Targets

In Iraq and Syria this week Israel continues its Onslaught in Gaza and news emerging today that Jordan is believed to have carried out a strike in neighboring Syria as well so all of this makes a very fragile region not just perhaps in the Middle East and further

East but in Europe as well concerns that anyone one of these incidents could become the flash point that ignites a much larger regional conflict moving back to Ukraine have a quick Roundup of what’s happened in the last week the conflict continues in this sort of grinding stage on the front line things

Have quietened down there hasn’t been significant movement on the front line but the missile and drone strikes continue a couple of interesting developments news has emerged that Russia has been using its Iranian made Shahed kamakazi one-way attack Dr these are you know so large uh low and slow

Drones which have been used particularly last winter to attack Ukrainian infrastructure they appear to have been used for the first time on the front lines against sort of military targets much closer to the front and that’s significant because the air defense capability at the front uh is not necessarily the same as advanced

Sophisticated or comprehensive as it is further back at the higher value targets and that shows that Russia may be sort of always trying to evolve its tactics to sidestep or find ways around Ukraine’s defenses we’ve also heard in the last 24 hours that in the most recent strike against the southern Port

City of adessa uh that these drones were coming in at a critically low altitude again perhaps an indication that Russia is trying to evolve its tactics to make uh these strikes more successful Ukraine has said that most of its forces are now moving to a defense posture but outside

Of Ukraine we see evidence that the sabotage attacks continue today reports emerging of strikes against at least three railway lines in different parts of Russia uh reports of a drone strike against an a against an oil Depot in St Petersburg and officials in Moscow region also saying that they shot down

What is believed to be a Ukrainian drone perhaps the most spectacular uh image was of an enormous fire at a polyester Factory the shaki polyester Factory in the rostov region which neighbors uh Ukraine it’s not clear what caused that and why Ukraine might have attacked a polyester Factory if indeed this was an

Act of sabotage it’s still not clear but there are unconfirmed reports that perhaps that factory was being used for a purpose other than making mattress and pillow fillings thank you very much for watching as ever if you have any questions please make them in the comments if you watching on YouTube make

Them in the comments uh below and we will endeavor to answer the answer them in the next episode uh some of the questions from last time uh is the winter an enforced ceasefire it’s a good question in one sense you know the freezing weather conditions make it very

Difficult for people to fight to exist in the trenches to exist in bunkers it’s very uncomfortable it’s very cold however uh when the ground freezes as it is doing now that actually makes it easier for heavy armored vehicles to move around without getting bogged down so on the one hand you have the

Difficulty just of existing in the cold you have the loss of the leaves uh and the foliage which often provides useful cover for soldiers and for vehicles against surveillance against thermal imaging uh and drones uh but the the change in terrain does sometimes make it easier for vehicles to move and that’s

One of the reasons why uh Russia timed its Invasion nearly two years ago uh for the 24th of February because the ground was still largely Frozen and had they waited a few more weeks uh then there would have been a Thor and indeed they found themselves fighting in that Thor

And that’s one of the reasons uh The Assault on keev got so bogged down in the early weeks of the invasion worth also pointing out that uh despite things slowing down there are concerns particularly in Ukraine that Russia may be planning a new offensive in the North North Eastern harv region in the

Countryside surrounding Ukraine’s Second City uh this driven in many ways by Ukraine’s uh successful attacks into Russian territory there into belgrod OAS indeed belgrod City uh suggestions that Russia may want to try and push Russia uh push Ukrainian artillery back uh in order to inhibit those attacks concerns

That that might become a new focus of Russia’s Fury question number two what has happened to the money really good question really important uh $60 billion of us Aid remains blocked in US Congress by political wrangling there between the Democrats and the Republicans domestic political wrangling primarily over

Trying to the Republicans want the Democrats to do more uh to build a wall and secure the southern border with Mexico uh the U the White House wants to push through Aid uh to Israel and to Ukraine but that is being held up slight slly better news in Brussels in the

European Union where there is a 50 billion Euro package earmarked for Ukraine that was vetoed by Hungary uh Hungary has since indicated that there are two areas they would like to see concessions which may uh move them to remove that veto one is instead of having this Aid guaranteed for a 4-year

Period they want it reviewed on a 12 monthly uh basis and also in the sort of horse trading the suggestions that uh they’d like to see Budapest would like see an extension of a sort of covid recovery program effectively that’s a way for Hungary to take more money to

Get more money from Brussels coffers in exchange for uh giving the rubber stamp the green light for this money to go through to Ukraine of course we’ve also seen last week that Britain announced 2.5 billion uh in military aid for this financial this coming Financial year uh

And then the last 24 hours Germany has also announced that it will provide around 6 billion pounds worth of military that’s military aid unilaterally and that’s partly because of problems with the sort of collective EU uh programs being held up being vetoed by one uh Ralston or or or

Troublesome member in this case Hungary and final question for today is about how what has there been any development any progress on Ukraine’s domestic uh arms manufacturing base and and it’s another really good question because certainly as Ukraine faces a sort of slowdown in the international support

And some signs of division and debate and reluctance from its allies it is trying to step up and arm itself Alexander kashin the minister for critical Industries has announced at the uh World economic Forum in Davos a couple of really interesting things that Ukraine is now manufacturing NATO

Caliber ammunition so those are shells that can work in the NATO guns that NATO allies have provided NATO guns use 155 mm ammunition that is slightly larger than the 152 mm Heavy Artillery ammunition that Russian maid and Soviet era guns use uh he’s also talked about Ukraine’s ammunition production in

General he said it’s doubled its capacity but most interestingly he said that Ukraine has found a way to combine parts of uh American and Western donated air defense systems with its old existing Soviet systems now the suggestion is is they might be able to use uh modern uh NATO donated or Western

Donated Radars with old Soviet missile launchers so for examp and also possibly using book missile launchers those are the types of uh missile launchers that have been used in the Ukrainian conflict since 2014 using them with americanmade missiles particularly the rim7 missile that’s an anti- ship based air defense

Missile so effectively uh another example of Ukraine’s kind of Ingenuity um necessity being the mother of invention finding ways to solve its problem problems uh finding ways to use what it has the means available uh to achieve what it needs to do which is to hold off Russian forces and ultimately

To push them backwards thank you for watching or listening if you’re watching on YouTube please don’t forget ask your questions in the comments below and we’ll do our best to answer them next time if you’re listening then please don’t forget to subscribe to Frontline with me Jerome starky for the latest

News on the war in Ukraine

On this week’s episode of The Frontline with Jerome Starkey an American Patriot missile is believed to have shot down a Russian Beriev a-50 spy plane over the Sea of Azov as the Chair of Nato’s Military Council warned Europe must prepare for war.

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