Airspace Violations
Joshua Foust on Apr 22 2008 at 8:28 pm | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Military Matters
Cross-posted to Registan.net, which is “All Central Asia, All the Time.”
Last year, Georgia was abuzz with accusations against Russia for its military jets supposedly violating its airspace and possibly even attacking radio stations. Now, Georgian officials are hopping mad over accusations that Russia shot down one of their surveillance drones. They even have video:
The video is fuzzy enough to where the plane—which is only seen to have swept wings and twin tails—could very well be a MiG-29 Fulcrum. According to Wikipedia (my subscription to Jane’s has lapsed, alas), Georgia only flies the Sukhoi SU-25 as a fixed-wing attack aircraft—those have a single tail fin. With the understanding that that reference carries with it certain caveats as to its reliability, there is also a link in the Wikipedia entry on Abkhazia’s Air Force that claims they fly Sukhoi SU-27 fighter planes.
This is where the story becomes more interesting.
If this is true—and without access to better databases on the world’s military, it might not be—then the Russia’s claims that is was an Abkhazian aircraft that downed the drone might actually be true. Without better resolution on the video, which won’t happen so long as the only copies available are filmed secondhand from a Defence spokesman, it’s tough to tell if the aircraft firing the missile was a MiG-29 or an SU-27. Georgie certainly wants the attack to be Russian and not Abkkazian, for obvious reasons: if Abkhazia has begun shooting down Georgian drones, then the olive branch of sorts President Saakashvili extended to Abkhazia last month would be null and void. It would also play into Russian claims that Georgian possession of Abkhazia is sparking the conflict, rather than Russian meddling or interference.
Of course, this is highly unlikely. Abkhazian leaders have claimed the plane that shot the drone down was an L-39, a much smaller single-tail aircraft used mostly as a trainer in Abkhazia and not really a combat plane. Assuming the stories of Abkhazian Su-27s are wrong, which is fair given the Abkhazian insistence on its use of the L-39, and especially given the radar records indicating the plane took off from a supposedly-closed former Soviet airbase in Gudauta, it is safe to assume that a Russian plane, and not an Abkhazian or Georgian one, shot down that drone (Russia has a very sketchy history with Gudauta).
But it is even more interesting than that. The drone might not have been on a peaceful reconnaissance of Georgian territory, or however it is the Defence Ministry is spinning the mission. Georgia’s drones are Israeli Elbit Hermes 450 drones—(Israel makes some of the world’s best and most capable UAVs)—and those are not always peaceful. For one, the drones are meant to do tactical reconnaissance—much like they’re used in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or the U.S.-Mexican border. In function, it is similar to the U.S.’s own MQ-1 Predator.
This means the Hermes 450 can carry weapons—two Rafael Spike-ER missiles, a missile similar to the AGM-114 Hellfire fired by Predators—if the stories and second-hand analysis are to be believed. The big difference is, the Spike-ER was designed from the start to be used in urban counterinsurgency and low-intensity conflicts, which is somewhat like what Georgia faces in its western breakaway province. This is how Vladimir Putin can wonder aloud at the “combat drone” flying over Abkhazia, even though all indications are that this particular drone was unarmed.
Alas, like the other scuffles between Russian aircraft and Georgian sovereignty in its two separatist provinces, it is unlikely any concrete resolution will come to the incident. Given the politics of the situation, and the nature of this particular attack, it is unlikely conclusive proof of a Russian plane violating Georgian airspace and shooting down a Georgian military aircraft—incidentally, an act of war—will ever come to light.
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