Key Points and Summary – Ukraine’s latest deep strike hit one of Russia’s most sensitive aviation sites: the Beriev plant in Taganrog. A combined attack using Bars jet-powered drones and Neptune land-attack missiles destroyed two unique Il-76-based testbeds — the A-60 1A2 airborne laser platform and the A-100LL flying laboratory for Russia’s troubled A-100 Premier AWACS.
-Their loss likely cripples Moscow’s next-gen radar aircraft program for years.
Su-35 Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The raid is part of a widening Ukrainian campaign against strategic targets inside Russia, which has already damaged or disrupted dozens of oil, gas and chemical facilities, deepening fuel shortages and forcing refinery shutdowns across the country.
Ukraine Destroys Russia’s Only Laser Jet and AWACS Testbed in One Night
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – Overnight on 24-25 November, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU) conducted a combined drone and missile strike on one of the most sensitive and valuable special mission aircraft facilities in all of Russia.
This design and production plant belongs to the PJSC Beriev Aviation Scientific-Technical Complex, known as TANTK, in Taganrog, Russia.
The enterprise has long been associated with Russian strategic aerospace programs.
According to videos posted on-line, this attack destroyed two unique experimental aircraft, of which each was the only example in existence.
The first of these two was the A-60 1A2, which is built on an Ilyushin Il-76 airframe.
The A-60 1A2 is a Soviet-era airborne laser weapons platform designed to blind satellites and shoot down other aircraft.
Su-35 Fighter X Screenshot
The platform is described as fitted with a high-power laser, supported by two 2.1-megawatt turbo-generators installed near the rear landing-gear bays.
The visibility of these generators is an external detail that made this one of the easiest ways to identify the aircraft in open-source imagery.
This aircraft program had been inactive for a long time and had been parked at the Taganrog aircraft factory for about 20 years.
It is believed that the aircraft destroyed was the only one in existence, as the last known location of the A-60 1A2 seen at Beriev is identical to the area of the plane hit in the videos posted after the strike.
A Second Experimental Platform Destroyed
As one might say, there was a “bonus” to this Ukrainian attack on the Taganrog facility.
Satellite photos show that a second aircraft was taken out in this same strike, an A-100LL testbed.
The suffix “LL”, when part of a Russian aircraft designator, denotes that the aircraft is a “flying laboratory” and is shorthand for being used as a testbed to validate a particular design or central subsystem.
In this case, the aircraft was being used for Russia’s rather long-suffering A-100 Premier advanced AWACS program.
The destroyed airframe is the A-100LL program testbed, which was also based on an Il-76MD airframe, tail number 52 Red, and registration RF-93953.
The destruction of this testbed is more than just the loss of this one aircraft, as the Ukrainian publication Defense Express explains:
“The A-100LL played a vital role: it served as the primary ground and flight testing platform for all A-100 systems. It was used for a full spectrum of evaluations and trials of onboard equipment intended for the [A-100] operational aircraft. In essence, the A-100LL was indispensable to Russia’s entire effort to develop a next-generation AWACS aircraft to replace the A-50 — and likely to modernize the existing fleet.”
Su-35 Fighter from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
“Without this testbed, all related work will be delayed indefinitely. This is why the destruction of the A-100LL represents a far greater loss than a single aircraft. And given that the A-100 program was already on life support, the elimination of its only test platform likely marks the final collapse of a project Russia has dragged on since the early 2000s — despite its original promises to field the first aircraft in 2016.”
Further reporting from the OSINT community reveals additional details.
Ukrainian Strikes Are Taking Their Toll
Initially, reports were that these two irreplaceable aircraft had been destroyed by one of Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks.
However, follow-on reporting has revealed that the attack was a combination of both the Bars’ long-range, jet-powered attack drones and the Neptune land-attack cruise missiles.
Ukraine is constantly developing modifications to the myriad of models of drones and missiles it fires against targets in Russia, and their success in hitting strategic targets inside of Russia – such as oil industrial sites – speaks for itself.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had reported hits on more than 160 Russian oil, gas and chemical facilities as of the beginning of this month.
Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the SBU, stated at the end of October that Russian domestic fuel shortages have increased to 20 per cent in some regions, and that 37 per cent of Russia’s refining capacity nationwide has been forced to shut down.
This includes strikes on six oil refineries, two oil terminals, three fuel depots, and nine pumping stations.
Fuel deficits were also reported in 57 Russian regions in early November, prompting Moscow to ban exports of refined petrol until the end of the year.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
