On Friday, April 17, 2026, Russia’s state-owned Rostec corporation announced that its subsidiary, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), had delivered this year’s first batch of Su-35S (NATO reporting name: Flanker-E) multirole aircraft to the Aerospace Forces (VKS).
Photos: UAC
As before, the aircraft, whose number was not disclosed and which are described as 4++ generation fighters, completed a full cycle of factory tests, were accepted by technical personnel and tested in various operating modes by pilots of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, before being flown under their own power from the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant (KnAAPO) in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in Russia’s Far East, to their home air base.
The number of aircraft delivered is unknown, due to the Russian Ministry of Defense’s new information policy introduced after the outbreak of the full-scale war with Ukraine. The numbers of delivered aircraft are also not disclosed and, in photographs, are simply retouched. The published photographs show only one aircraft.
“As part of the implementation of the objectives set by the Russian defense minister, concerning the equipping of the armed forces with weapons and equipment sufficient to carry out combat missions, we have received a new batch of Su-35S aircraft. It is a highly maneuverable multirole fighter. The aircraft performs flawlessly, and the crew feels comfortable operating it. We use it to carry out various missions: intercepting air targets at long range, providing cover for strike groups and ground forces, destroying unmanned aerial vehicles, and precisely attacking ground and surface targets with precision-guided munitions. We also conduct reconnaissance and detect enemy positions at considerable depths from the line of contact,” a VKS Su-35S pilot noted.
In 2025, seven batches of these aircraft were delivered to the military, each numbering no more than two to three aircraft (in March, May, June, August, September, November, and December), or around 15–18 aircraft annually.
In 2024, there were four batches (in November, September, May, and April), while in 2023 there were five batches (in November, October, September, June, and July). These probably came from a batch of 24 aircraft ordered in 2021, which was the fourth publicly disclosed production contract, with a deadline of the end of 2024. Deliveries of the first aircraft began in December 2022.
On June 7, 2025, over Kursk Oblast, one aircraft of this type was shot down as a result of a successful operation by the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – unofficially by an F-16 multirole aircraft. It was the thirteenth example lost by Russia since the start of the full-scale war with Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
As of December 2022, when the size of deliveries was last reported, Russia had 110 Su-35S aircraft.
Compared with its prototype, the Su-27P/S, the Su-35S/SE multirole aircraft features enlarged wings, tail surfaces, and air intakes, as well as a reduced radar cross-section (RCS). It is powered by two Saturn/Lyulka AL-37F (117S) twin-spool turbofan engines with independent thrust-vectoring nozzles and an extended service life. The N035 Irbis-E radar, equipped with a passive electronically scanned array (PESA), is capable of tracking 30 airborne targets and engaging eight simultaneously, or tracking up to four ground targets without interrupting airspace scanning.
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