According to preliminary information, the A-50 fell near the Trudovaya Armenia farm in the Krasnodar Territory. The nearest point on the front line from this farm is approximately 250 kilometers. The Ukrainian Armed Forces do not use ground-based anti-aircraft weapons capable of attacking aircraft at such a distance from the front line.
The village of Kanevsky District in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, is 200 km away from the front line. This significantly exceeds the nominal range of the Patriot Air Defense System's PAC-2 surface-to-air missile (160 km). If it were a surface-to-air missile, it would be too dangerous to deploy it at the very edge of the front line. It would need to be placed a little further back, and would require a range much longer than 200km.
It cannot be ruled out that the Ukrainians could use the Soviet S-200 anti-aircraft missile system. The range of some missiles of this air defense system reaches 300 kilometers.
Firstly, this is a stationary system, and deploying it near the front line would be dangerous. Secondly, during the current war, the Ukrainians have used the S-200 mainly for shelling ground targets.
Another version is “friendly fire”. As in the first case on January 14, the AWACS aircraft could have been shot down mistakenly by Russian anti-aircraft gunners.
https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/ckvewy95l2xo
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- By Tainari88
- By Pants-of-dog