After downing of second Russian A-50, no such aircraft have been seen in Ukraine - Air Force spokesman

He said this during the telethon on February 27.

"It's been gone for 3 days now. It was actually flying every day accompanied by an Il-22. It hasn't been seen for three days now," Ihnat said.

He also explained how Russian intelligence was limited without this aircraft.

"A-50 is an aircraft that conducts radar reconnaissance of the territory of Ukraine as far as it can reach with its radar. For the A-50, it is an Il-76, an aircraft with a radar on top, which actually conducts this reconnaissance, that is, scans the territory to a depth of 600 km, so it needs to be in the air high up for the radar to reach this distance," the spokesman said.

The reconnaissance was abandoned after the first A-50 was shot down, so now it's even further.

"After the first downing of the A-50, the second one was pushed to a greater area, meaning it was pushed further away, but it could still reach there, and now it is even further away, which reduces the ability of this radar to look further and provide the enemy with extremely valuable information about the air situation in Ukraine," Ihnat explained.

• On the evening of February 23, the Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed a Russian A-50U aircraft. Instead, Russia claimed that the aircraft crashed, causing the reeds to catch fire.
• On February 24, Ukrainian intelligence confirmed that the entire crew of the A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft shot down on February 23 was killed.
• UK intelligence believes that the destruction of the second Russian A-50U long-range radar tracking aircraft demonstrates that Russia is unable to protect its air assets.