Footage has emerged that purportedly exhibits a Saab 340 airborne early warning and management (AEW&C) plane working over Ukraine. If authentic, this might be the primary time that the radar airplane has been seen in Ukrainian service, so far as we all know, and would mark an essential new functionality for Ukraine, and one which we’ve got mentioned in depth up to now.
Russians are posting footage they declare exhibits probably a Swedish Saab 340 AEW&C long-range radar and management plane flying over Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/XkFZlok2B3
— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) March 20, 2026
The video in query seems to have been first posted to a Russian Telegram account and clearly exhibits one of many plane, with its distinctive ‘stability beam’ radar fairing on the higher fuselage, in stage flight throughout the daytime. The date and placement of the video can’t be confirmed. It also needs to be famous that we can not confirm the footage itself, however there may be nothing to right away counsel it might have been doctored.
As talked about, this seems to be the primary time we’ve got ever seen one of many Ukrainian Air Drive’s two Saab 340 AEW&C planes, though there are options that the kind has been flying in Ukrainian skies for a while.
In April of final yr, open-source flight-tracking platforms advised {that a} potential Ukrainian radar airplane was working within the Lviv area, in western Ukraine, flying circuits and utilizing the callsign WELCOME. Earlier than that, an unidentified plane with the identical callsign was noticed working in airspace close to Poland and Hungary. If true, that means that the observe over Lviv could have been a post-delivery acceptance or calibration flight. It’s additionally price noting that transponders will be manipulated to offer false plane tracks, too.
Stockholm’s switch of two Saab 340 AEW&C plane to Ukraine was introduced in Could 2024, as we reported on the time. The donation was a part of the largest Swedish army support package deal for Ukraine as much as that time, price round $1.25 billion.
On the time, it was stated that it will take round a yr to coach the aircrew and upkeep personnel, in addition to put together the bottom amenities for the brand new plane.
The Saab 340 AEW&C plane is thought in Swedish army service because the ASC 890 and alternatively because the S 100D Argus. The Swedish Air Drive operated two of those plane, with each understood to have been supplied to Kyiv. One other two ex-Swedish Saab 340 AEW&C plane are operated by Thailand, and one other pair have been offered to Poland, having beforehand been operated by the United Arab Emirates.
For Ukraine, the importance of the Saab 340 AEW&C is difficult to overstate.
It brings a completely new functionality for the Ukrainian Air Drive, which has by no means operated any kind of AEW&C platform.
The core of the plane is its Saab Erieye energetic electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. Carried atop the fuselage, this may detect air and sea targets at ranges of as much as round 280 miles, with the plane usually working at an altitude of 20,000 ft. Reportedly, the AESA system can observe as much as 1,000 airborne and 500 floor targets concurrently.
All this information is dealt with by a 3 mission crew: a mission management officer, a fight management operator, and a surveillance operator. It will also be downlinked to floor stations and to different plane, no less than in idea, of which we’ll focus on extra later.
Not like a surface-based air protection radar, the Erieye supplies a ‘lookdown’ functionality. With out the line-of-sight limitations of terrain, the radar can be particularly helpful for detecting low-flying Russian drones and cruise missiles. These are in any other case notably difficult targets, as a result of low altitudes at which they fly and their small radar signatures. With that in thoughts, the plane ought to present Ukraine’s air defenses with an enormous situational-awareness enhance.
{A photograph} taken on December 27, 2025, exhibits an Iranian-designed Shahed-136 (or Russian-made Geran-2) drone flying over Kyiv throughout a Russian drone and missile assault. Photograph by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP through Getty Pictures SERGEI SUPINSKY
Inside its layered air protection community, Ukraine depends closely on crewed fighter jets (in addition to different plane platforms) to intercept drones and cruise missiles. Including the Saab 340 AEW&C to the equation, the radar airplane ought to be capable to work as a fighter controller, detecting targets, prioritizing them, after which assigning them to the fighters for interception. Equally, this information might be supplied to different air protection property.
Particularly helpful on this regard could be the NATO-standard Hyperlink 16 datalink communications system. This may, in idea, be appropriate with Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighters, in addition to Western-supplied ground-based air protection techniques.
Nevertheless, in late 2024, it was reported that the F-16s donated to Ukraine have had Hyperlink 16 techniques eliminated or disabled, resulting from U.S. worries that they might find yourself in Russian arms.
This may deprive these fighters of a real-time air protection ‘image’ sourced from the Erieye radar, and, at this level, it’s unclear if the Hyperlink 16 connectivity is on the market to Ukraine.
As of March 2025, it was reported that the supply of the radar planes was on observe, and they’d be capable to function successfully with Ukraine’s F-16s.
“The timing of ASC 890 deliveries is linked to when sure modifications to F-16 fighters can be prepared. There isn’t any delay within the switch of airborne early warning plane to Ukraine,” the Lithuanian Delfi information company reported. This sounds very very like a reference to enabling the Hyperlink 16 connectivity.
Nevertheless, even with out Hyperlink 16, the Saab 340 AEW&C is ready to present much-enhanced air and sea surveillance for Ukraine.
Later variations of the Erieye radar even have an artificial aperture radar and floor shifting goal indication (SAR/GMTI) functionality, though it’s not clear if Ukraine has acquired that both. Whereas SAR supplies detailed image-like mapping of the bottom at standoff ranges, GMTI detects and tracks actions on the bottom over time, which might permit monitoring of Russian troop actions.
Ought to Ukraine’s formidable plans to purchase Saab Gripen fighters sooner or later materialize, the mixture of those jets and the Saab 340 AEW&C might make a tailored resolution for air protection and different missions.
For all its capabilities, the Saab 340 AEW&C can even be a primary goal for Russia.
Russia’s personal A-50 Mainstay AEW&C plane have been repeatedly focused by Ukraine, in recognition of their worth as drive multipliers.
Russia was estimated to have 9 A-50s in energetic service at first of the full-scale invasion. Since then, there have been two fight losses, and one other of those plane was broken in a drone assault whereas on the bottom at a base in Belarus, and its present standing is unknown. Extra lately, the Normal Employees of the Ukrainian Armed Forces claimed an A-50 had been hit in a strike on a upkeep facility within the Novgorod area of Russia.
This actuality nearly definitely means Ukraine operates the Saab radar planes from the far west of the nation, probably shifting them between airfields to scale back their publicity to airstrikes. Related ways are additionally employed by Ukrainian F-16s. With a most of two plane, round the clock protection can be not possible, so one plane might be stored on everlasting floor alert to reply to notably intensive Russian drone and missile barrages.
It’s probably for that reason, too, that we’ve got not seen something of the Ukrainian Saab 340 AEW&C plane since their supply.
With time, we’ll hopefully be taught extra about what these secretive property are bringing to Ukraine’s air defenses and how much impact they’re having on countering the near-constant Russian drone and missile assaults.
Contact the writer: thomas@thewarzone.com