Ukrainian GUR: The Russian A-50 was shot down by the S-200. P. S. The S-200M “Vega-M” is the upgraded version of the S-200B. Solid fuel boosters are used, the max range is increased to 240 km (with an AWACS aircraft – up to 255 km), ceiling – 0.3 – 40 km.

3 comments

1. Sounds expensive, and they shot at least 2 of them.

   Still, cheaper than $300 million 🤓

2. The A-50 is such a huge, lumbering-looking plane that it’s reasonable that you could hit it with even something as ancient as an S-200.

3. This seems unlikely. The A-50 was reportedly 250+km from the line of contact, so the S-200 would have to be literally sitting in the trenches to achieve such a distance AND (according to this tweet) rely on an AWACS to boost the range, which Ukraine does not possess. NATO AWACS aircraft could assist, BUT they do not operate anywhere near close enough to be in radar range of the A-50 (the E-3 Sentry has a published radar range of 375km, the E-7 claims a 400km radar range, but the distance from Romanian airspace where NATO planes operate to the spot where the A-50 crashed is over 800km). without the AWACS the S-200 would literally have to be behind Russian lines for this claim to be true.