Wagner Group shooting down a Russian command plane may be gift that keeps on giving for Ukraine’s beleaguered air defenses

• During Wagner Group’s revolt in June, its mercenaries shot down several Russian military aircraft.
• Among them was an Il-22M, which is designed to control and coordinate ground and air forces.
• The loss of one of Russia’s few Il-22M could hinder its air force’s ability to operate over Ukraine.

Under normal circumstances, the Wagner Group mercenaries who shot down a flying command post would have received medals. Instead, they may end up in jail — or worse.

Wagner Group’s abortive revolt last month didn’t just end with its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, fleeing the country and its troops being absorbed into the Russian military. It also saw Russian forces fire on each other, destroying several helicopters and, most crucially, an irreplaceable Il-22M (codenamed “Coot-B” by NATO), a Cold War-era Il-18 transport modified for use as a command center and radio relay to control air and ground forces.

“The loss of this aircraft is likely to have a negative impact on Russian air and land operations,” the British Ministry of Defense said in an update published on June 29.

Russia is estimated to have only 12 Il-22Ms. Russia also has 19 Il-20M and Il-22 electronic signals-intelligence aircraft — also based on the Il-18 — but losing an Il-22M is particularly costly.

“These special mission aircraft have played a key role in orchestrating Russian forces in their war against Ukraine,” according to the Ministry of Defense. “As high value assets they have operated within the safety of Russian airspace, far beyond the range of Ukrainian air defense systems.”

The Il-22M or its US counterpart, the E8-C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, a Boeing 707 airliner converted into a command post and surveillance aircraft, are airborne hubs for the integration of forces on and over the battlefield. Tight coordination between disparate capabilities — jets and missiles or electronic warfare and satellite communications — is the glue that provides cohesion to modern military operations.

Russia still has 10 A-50 airborne warning and control system aircraft similar to the US E-3 Sentry, but with only a dozen Il-22Ms to start — and all of them in heavy use — even the loss of one could have an impact, especially if Russia wants to increase its air operations over Ukraine.

“There is a realistic possibility that current tasking levels may have to be reduced to safely manage the remaining fleet,” the Ministry of Defense said. “This will likely undermine Russia’s ability to command and coordinate its forces, particularly during periods of high tempo operations.”

Russian air force command-and-control difficulties could benefit Ukrainian forces, which have at times struggled to keep up with Russian aerial attacks. Not that Russia has always made good use of its command-and-control aircraft.

In the first week of its invasion, low-flying Ukrainian fighters were able to pop up and ambush high-flying Russian jets, according to a report published last year by Britain’s Royal United Services Institute think tank. A possible reason for that was “poor dissemination of surveillance information from the radar to the Il-20M ‘Coot’ airborne command post and relay aircraft passing information from ground networks to patrolling Russian fighters,” the report said.

The airborne command posts couldn’t even communicate directly with air-defense units or with Russian fighters on combat air patrols.

“Because the Russian air operation is subordinated to the Ground Forces, surveillance information is not typically relayed directly between A-50M and fighters on CAP or to long-range GBAD [ground-based air defense] units such as S-400 batteries,” the report said. “Instead, information is normally relayed via the military district command post or a combined arms army command post, then either directly or via an Il-20M relay aircraft to the GBAD units and fighter patrols.”

Indeed, command and control is the Achilles heel of the Russian military, which inherited the rigid command structure of its Soviet predecessor. In Ukraine, Russian airpower has been unable to form the complex air packages used by Western air forces, which use AWACS aircraft to coordinate fighters, strike aircraft, and electronic-warfare planes, according to Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at RUSI.

On the other hand, Russian pilots aren’t trained to take the initiative, as Western pilots are. “Instead, Russian pilots are trained to perform narrower mission profiles under tighter command and control arrangements in smaller formations,” Bronk said in a report published in April by US-based research organization CNA.

All of which puts a premium on Russia’s flying command posts. If losing just one of a dozen Il-22Ms puts a crimp in Russian ground and air operations, then the underlying problem isn’t lack of airborne control centers but rather a rigid and fragile command system — and losing one of those valuable airborne control centers to ostensibly friendly forces only makes things worse.

“In the short term the psychological shock of losing a large number of aircrew in this manner will almost certainly damage morale within the Russian Aerospace Force,” the British Ministry of Defense concluded.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master’s in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.