Russian А-50U AEW&C leaves Belarus

A Russian А-50U airborne early warning and control aircraft has left Belarus.

Belarus Gayun monitoring group reported about this.

The Russian specialized aircraft А-50U “Sergej Atayants” with registration number RF-93966 took off from the Belarusian airfield in Machulishchi at 10:12 a.m. local time.

According to the monitoring group, the AEW&C aircraft flies from Belarus to Russia.

А-50 is a Soviet and Russian airborne early warning and control aircraft.

It was created on the basis of the Il-76 military transport aircraft. In turn, А-50 has several modifications.

The А-50-type aircraft is designed to detect, track, and determine the state affiliation of air, ground, and surface targets, submit information about them to the command posts of automated control systems, direct fighter jets toward air targets, and attack aircraft toward the ground and maritime targets.

А-50U “Sergej Atayants” arrived in Belarus on December 14. The plane landed at the Machulishchi airfield in the Minsk region.

It should be noted that in addition to the aforementioned aircraft, Russian MiG-31К fighters, carrying Kh-47М Kinzhal missiles, periodically arrive in Belarus.

It has recently been reported that in Belarus there was an engine fire on one of these Russian military aircraft. According to preliminary data, the incident occurred at the airfield in Machulishchi.

It should be reminded that the Belarusian military are training in peace-to-wartime transition drills. Relevant exercises take place as part of combat and mobilization readiness level checks.

Belarus claims that the main purpose of training is to test the knowledge of military personnel and assess their actions when bringing the military unit to the highest degrees of combat readiness.