The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) claims that it hit an Il-38N maritime anti-submarine aircraft in a drone attack on Yeysk airport in southern Russia.
According to a statement published by the SBU press service on the official Telegram channel, the action took place before the explosion of a Varshavyanka-class submarine in Novorossijsk.
According to the statement, the aircraft was stationed at the airfield where the 859th Center for Combat Deployment and Retraining of Naval Aviation Flight Personnel of the Russian Navy operates. To destroy the aircraft, a drone equipped with an air-exploding explosive charge with approximately two thousand downward-pointing destructive elements was used.
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“The explosive detonated directly above the compartment housing the aircraft’s main equipment and radars and also caused damage to the engine,” the SBU said. According to the Ukrainian service, the operation was planned and carried out by agents of the 13th Main Directorate of the Military Counterintelligence Department of the Security Service of Ukraine.
The Il-38N is intended for maritime reconnaissance missions, detecting and tracking submarines, controlling maritime areas, laying minefields and torpedo attacks. According to the SBU, the affected aircraft played an active role in countering maritime drones deployed by Ukraine in the Black Sea.
The aircraft is a modernized version of the original Il-38 and is distinguished by the integration of the advanced patrol and surveillance system Novella. The first flight of the modernized aircraft, then still equipped with a mock-up of the search and navigation complex, took place in the spring of 2001. In the fall of 2022, full state trials of the system began.
The first test aircraft was inducted into the Northern Fleet at the end of 2011, with the official handover in March 2012. The serial modernization of the Il-38 to the Il-38N standard, also known by the code name “Romance”, began in 2013 and was carried out by the Myasishchev design bureau in Zhukovsky, near Moscow.
The exact differences between the Novella system and the basic export version known as “Sea Serpent” remain secret. Information released by Russian sources indicates that the complex is capable of detecting surface and underwater targets, and even targets under ice, within a radius of up to 320 kilometers, as well as having a special electronic intelligence unit.
Currently, some of the Il-38 aircraft still in service with Russian naval aviation use the Berkut navigation and targeting system, which was originally developed in the 1960s. This makes the Il-38N one of the most advanced platforms of this type that the Russian Navy has at its disposal.
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Source and images: Telegram @SBUkr. This content was created using AI and reviewed by editors.
