Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it struck an Il-38N anti-submarine naval aircraft in a drone attack at the Yeysk airfield in southern Russia.
The action reportedly took place prior to the explosion of a Varshavyanka-class submarine in Novorossiysk, according to a statement released by the SBU press service on its official Telegram channel.
According to the note, the aircraft was based at the airfield where the 859th Center for Combat Use and Flight Personnel Retraining of the Russian Navy’s Naval Aviation operates. To destroy the aircraft, a drone equipped with an air-detonation warhead was used, containing around two thousand downward-directed lethal elements.
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“The device detonated directly above the compartment housing the aircraft’s main equipment and radars, also causing damage to the engine,” the SBU reported. The operation, according to the Ukrainian agency, was planned and carried out by officers 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, submarine search and tracking, control of maritime areas, deployment of minefields, and torpedo attacks. According to the SBU, the struck aircraft had been playing an active role in countering naval drones employed by Ukraine in the Black Sea.
It is a modernized version of the original Il-38, distinguished by the incorporation of the advanced Novella patrol and surveillance system. The first flight of the modernized aircraft, still fitted with a mock-up of the search and navigation complex, took place in the spring of 2001. In the autumn 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 transfer carried out in March 2012. Serial modernization of the Il-38 to the Il-38N standard, also known by the codename “Romance,” began in 2013 and was conducted by the Myasishchev design bureau in Zhukovsky, near Moscow.
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The exact differences between the Novella system and its basic export version, known as “Sea Serpent,” remain classified. Information released by Russian sources indicates that the complex is capable of detecting surface and submerged targets, and even targets under ice, at ranges of up to 320 kilometers, and includes a dedicated electronic intelligence unit.
Currently, part of the Il-38 aircraft still in service with Russian naval aviation uses the Berkut navigation and targeting system, originally developed in the 1960s, making the Il-38N one of the most advanced platforms of its type available to the Russian Navy.
Source and images: Telegram @SBUkr. This content was created with the assistance of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
