Ben Rhodes

It can detect anything airborne within 250 miles from the surface of the Earth all the way up to the stratosphere.

We do not have a ton of planes like these, and they are very, very, very expensive.

But AWACS are just key to American air dominance in faraway war zones.

Well, on Friday, Iran blew one up.

Iran carried out a targeted attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

That attack wounded a dozen U.S.

troops.

It also destroyed this vital and rare and expensive and strategically critical radar aircraft that we don't have very many of.

How did it know how to find it?

Why wasn't it protected?

Why was it out in the open?

Over the weekend, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, told NBC News that it wasn't Iran that figured out where that vital U.S.

aircraft was sitting there unprotected.

It was Russia.

In an interview with NBC, Zelensky shared his own briefing from Ukraine intelligence.

It showed that Russian satellites had taken images of that airbase in Saudi Arabia not once, not twice, but three times in the week leading up to the strike that injured all those American troops and destroyed that critical plane.

Since the start of this war in Iran, we have seen report after report citing U.S.

officials and British officials, even German officials, all saying that Russia is helping Iran target U.S.

assets, helping Iran target and attack and kill and wound U.S.

troops.