MINSK. March 7 (Interfax) - Russia's A-50 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft sustained insignificant damage in an attempted act of sabotage at the Machulishchi airfield in Belarus, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.
"A terror attack was plotted. You know the results. Luckily, the plane did not sustain any significant damage except, as they say, a scratch and a hole in its skin, which does not prevent the warplane from accomplishing its missions," the Belarusian state-run news agency BelTA quoted Lukashenko as saying on Tuesday.
"We showed the plane to you. As I was told, it even met the president when I was coming back from Beijing. Nevertheless, we asked the Russians to take this plane away for maintenance and to send us another. This is what happened," Lukashenko said.