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Amid a bleak month for Ukrainian air defenders, a newly unearthed video from a recent U.S. Army symposium reveals the truth behind one of Kyiv’s most important aerial victories of the war—but also clarifies the depth and evolution of the Russian air and missile threat.
In the video, a U.S. Army colonel—and former air defense liaison officer in Kyiv—confirms that a Patriot system shot down a Russian Air Force Beriev A-50 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) over Russian-occupied Berdyansk on Jan. 14.
“They’re using these types of systems, bringing them close to the [forward line of troops] and stretching the very, very edges of the kinematic capabilities of that system to engage the first A-50 system back in January,” said Col. Rosanna Clemente, the assistant chief of operations at the 10th Army Air and Missile Command.
Clemente’s remarks—spoken on May 6 during the Army’s 2024 Fires Symposium but left unnoticed until a video of her panel appeared later on the Vimeo website—clears up a mystery of the first A-50 shoot down, but stops short of explaining two subsequent events.
Ukrainian intelligence officials have credited the 5V28 interceptor of the Soviet-era S-200 for two longer-range, ground-based shoot downs: another A-50 over the Sea of Azov on Feb. 23 and a Tupolev Tu-22 on April 19. The latter incident occurred deep within Stavropol Krai, a Russian region over 300 km (185 mi.) from the front lines in Ukraine.
The second A-50 shoot down over the Sea of Azov appears to be at or beyond the outer limit of the Patriot system’s capabilities. Only 40 days earlier, the previous A-50 kill came at the “very, very edges” of its range, Clemente said, as Berdyansk lies on the coast of the inland sea. But the disputed downing of the Tu-22—which Russian officials claimed was the result of a technical malfunction—could not have been targeted by a Patriot battery on Ukrainian-held soil.
A possibility exists that both claims are correct. The U.S.-made Patriot system could be shooting down Russian aircraft just inside Russian territory. The S-200 could be used for longer-range attacks deep within Russian territory.
A few months before the first A-50 kill, a roaming Ukrainian Patriot air and missile defense battery had already chalked up similar, so-called “SAMbushes,” including the downing of three Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers on Dec. 23 and reportedly an Su-34, an Su-35 and two Mil Mi-8 helicopters in Bryansk, Russia, on May 14, 2023.
The Ukrainians are “doing some really, really historic things that I haven’t seen in 22 years of being an air defender,” said Clemente, who spent several months in Kyiv last year advising Ukrainian air defense forces.
But the challenge that the Ukrainians face is still large despite the victories.
“What I was able to observe over there is in the defense of critical national infrastructure, they’re facing a very, very complex threat,” Clemente said. “So we’re looking at ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and one-way attack drones that are launched from multiple directions and are designed to arrive at the target at the same time.”
The effectiveness of Russian attacks on critical infrastructure has varied over the course of the conflict, but turned alarming in the past month. More than a dozen Russian missiles slipped past critical infrastructure defenses during a May 8 attack, crippling several Ukrainian power stations, according to the Ukrainian government. In combination with limited Russian gains on the ground, the air and missile attacks spread new concerns. In interviews with reporters in mid-May, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for doubling the supply of Western fighters and additional ground-based systems.
In the meantime, U.S. and international air defense units are gaining a new appreciation for Ukraine’s use of mobile Patriot batteries near the front lines.
“I think the jury is still out,” Clemente said, “but it has some tremendous implications, at least in my mind as a future brigade commander, of considering the importance of mobility—survivability moves, moving these systems around so that you’re able to leverage and optimize your defense designs to the best extent possible.”
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