Videos purporting to show a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian oil refinery may have been a hijacked An-2. Whatever the circumstances, the incident highlights the continued use of the anachronistic, but venerable An-2, with or without a pilot.
Clips, seen below, showing what appears to be an An-2 making a low pass over an oil refinery in the city of Salavat in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, with gunfire being fired at it, began circulating on social media earlier today. .
A drone attack has been reported on a Russian oil refinery in Salavat, Bashkortostan, Russia. 1300km from the front.
UPD. A false alarm. As reported now, the civilian An-2 flew in a restricted area over an oil refinery and was shot down by Russian air defense. pic.twitter.com/wn6PS5OuqI
The aircraft seen in the videos has a wing configuration and overall stance consistent with the An-2, also known as the NATO reporting name Colt, and what sounds like a radial piston engine can be heard in some of the images. It may be another type of biplane, like a crop duster, but An-2s are still used in Russia for commercial and military purposes.
Two Russian An-2s were seen flying together in 2012. Artem Katranzhi/Wikimedia Commons
Although what exactly led to the An-2 sighting over Salavat is unknown, the fact that it was initially identified as a drone is not surprising. Salavat is 720 kilometers (nearly 1,160 km), at its closest, from the border with Ukraine, and 808 miles (nearly 1,300 km) from where the fighting took place in that country. However, Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to launch long-range attacks with kamikaze planes, including those converted from crew planes, against targets hundreds of kilometers inside Russian territory, including the capital Moscow. Russian facilities related to oil and natural gas production have also been the main targets of Ukrainian drones. With enough space inside to accommodate range-extending fuel and explosives, the An-2 would be a good candidate for conversion into a single-mode bomber.
Map showing the general location of the city of Salavat in the Russian Bashkortostan region. Google Maps
The idea of repurposing the An-2s, a plane that Antonov began producing in 1947 in the then-Soviet Ukraine, as armored planes is not new, either. During its war with Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2020, Azerbaijan used biplanes with some modifications as empty decoys. The pilots will lift off the plane and be locked in a pre-arranged location before bailing out. The planes would fly that route until they were shot down, ran out of fuel, or otherwise crashed. This, in turn, created problems for the Armenian air defenses who had to try to determine if the Colts were real kamikaze drones and make a decision about whether or not to use significant anti-aircraft resources to try to take them out. Using unmanned aerial vehicles will reveal air defense positions and provide the Azerbaijani forces with additional opportunities to gain information about Armenia’s capabilities and standard operating procedures.
The video below reportedly shows Armenian air defenses shooting down an Azerbaijani An-2.
In March 2022, shortly after Russia launched an all-out attack on Ukraine, there were signs that it was assembling An-2s, possibly to use them in a similar way to the way Azerbaijan used them against Armenia. There are no clear indications that Russian forces have subsequently used those aircraft in any configuration related to the conflict in Ukraine.
Prototypes of the Y-5, a version of the An-2 built under license in China, have also recently been converted into non-lease cargo platforms, ostensibly for civilian use, but with potential military applications.
Even when employed in its intended role as a light manned transport aircraft, the An-2 continues to operate in the military environment, as TWZ has highlighted many times in the past. With its metal-framed, but fabric-covered wings, the biplane has a small radar cross section for its size. It can fly very slowly and very low, further aiding in evading detection, even in some cases by high-flying aircraft with down-looking radars. The plane has short takeoff and landing capabilities, too.
For these reasons, North Korea significantly maintains a fleet of An-2 to help insert commandos behind enemy lines, either by parachute or after arriving at short distances or highways, during the initial stages of the conflict on the Peninsula. South Korea has its own An-2 to help its forces train against those threats.
North Korean An-2s shoot down commandos during training. North Korean State Media
One of the South Korean An-2s. Hywel Evans
Other armed forces around the world, including several within NATO, also continue to fly the An-2, which has the added advantage of being simple and cheap to operate and maintain.
An-2 of the air force of Latvia, a member of NATO. Armed Forces of Latvia
There continue to be attempts to replicate and improve the An-2 design, but no such attempt has been met with the same kind of success.
Whether or not more details emerge about the An-2 flight over Salavat, the videos highlight the magedege’s staying power, if the design looks primitive, manned or not, including military.
