Air defence is asleep - a cheap quadcopter flew over a $330m Russian A-50U, landed on a radar antenna and flew away quietly

The Belarusian initiative BYPOL published a video of a drone that flew over an A-50U AEW&C long-range radar detection aircraft. Where the Russian-Belarusian air defence system was at the time remains to be seen.

Here's What We Know

In late February it became known that drones attacked the $330 million A-50U. The incident took place when the aircraft was at an airfield in the village of Machilishchi, 12 km from Minsk. From there, together with the A-50U, the MiG-31K carrier of "Kinzhal" missiles took off permanently.

According to the Belarusian guerrillas, they conducted reconnaissance using unmanned aerial vehicles for a fortnight. On one mission, a cheap quadcopter infiltrated the airfield, flew around the aircraft, landed on a radar antenna in the shape of a huge saucer, and then calmly flew off on its own. The air defence system did not notice the drone.

The Belarusian guerrillas claimed that the A-50U had sustained serious damage and would not fly anywhere. But it turned out that this was not entirely true. The attack was carried out with the help of DJI quadcopters, which were equipped with 200g of explosives and converted into kamikaze drones. The plane did suffer damage, but on March 2 it flew to Russia, probably for repairs.

Source: BYPOL