Not to be left behind US development of airborne early warning (AEW) platforms, the Soviet Union became interested in designing its very own such aircraft, the Tupolev Tu-126 'Moss'. The Tu-126 was based on former Aeroflot conversions of the company's own Tu-114 civil airliner mounted with a rotating radome in addition to an inflight-refuelling probe as well as numerous communications, radar, and signal processing equipment in the former passenger cabin. Not much is known about this highly secretive aircraft other that it was believed to be considerably less capable than Western equivalents, being unable to detect cruise missiles or small aircraft flying at low altitude, although leased units by India were rated favorably in the 1971 war against Pakistan. Still, the Tu-126 served with Soviet air defense and naval forces until their retirement in 1984 by which time the more capable A-50 had replaced it.

Development of a Soviet AWACS aircraft was entrusted to Tupolev in 1958 and was originally intended to be based on the Tu-95 or Tu-116 after settling on the more ample Tu-114 airliner which first flew in converted form sometime in 1967 as the Tu-126. No other versions were built.