Russian channels are now increasingly going for the version that the A-50 and the Il-22M were not hit by enemy fire, but by something unspecific. The A-50 is gone, though. In addition, they say that the Il-22M while being damaged still made it to Anapa, Russia.
According to Wiki they have 15 A50 and 25 IL22 of which one had been damaged and one lost before.
How many of those are deployed to the War is hard to say. I would guess around 5 A50 and 10 IL22 maybe?
Because some are in maintenance at any given time and the others in training or other regions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_military_aircraft
@davoloid @Tendar Wikipedia says nine or ten: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_A-50
I stand corrected, according to forbes:
"Down one A-50, the Russian air force may have just two of the jets left; the other six A-50s reportedly are in need of upgrade and overhaul."
@theseeduneed @Jasper @davoloid I was curious about this when I read the article. Is there sometbing specific about 2 that is a problem for Russia? Does it take 3+ to keep 24/7 coverage? Or is it just that having nearly 0 is fabulous for Ukraine?
@LGsMom @theseeduneed @davoloid
Well, I'm not an aviation expert but as I understand the A50 is the only AWACs platform they have. So the only airborne long range radar. If the whole fleet is grounded/destroyed they wouldn't have any option to respond to the destruction of ground based radars by sending the planes as described in the Forbes article.
Also, it might be easier for Ukraine to do low flying attacks with Su24/F16, as ground based Radars have somewhat of a blind spot close to the ground due to the earth's curvature and terrain features. A radar up in the air afaik is less limited in this regard as it is looking "top down".
The A50 has a 4h flight time with the Option of Air-to-Air refueling, so theoretically it can stay up indefinitely, but I suspect you'd need at least two or better 3 planes to always have one in the air. I guess if I pressed the Russians can make some of the grounded 6 fly again but they are of older types and will likely perform worse.
@Jasper @theseeduneed @davoloid Thanks. Great explanation.
@Tendar Maybe down to 7 of the A-50s, according to this estimate of the fleet.
https://www.militarytoday.com/aircraft/a50.htm#:~:text=A%20total%20of%2040%2D42,and%206%20A%2D50U%20aircraft.