On Friday, September 17, 2025, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that during the night, while repelling a Ukrainian drone attack in the northwestern part of occupied Crimea, the Russian armed forces accidentally shot down their own Su-30SM multirole fighter (NATO reporting name: Flanker-G) in a friendly fire incident. The two-person crew managed to eject safely.
Su-30SM / Photo: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Russia Shoots Down Its Own Su-30SM Fighter
The Ukrainian Navy’s Intelligence Directorate received an intercepted radio message reporting the sighting of two parachutes belonging to the crew members ejected from a Russian Su-30SM fighter aircraft, which had been carrying out a mission in the northwestern part of the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
It is likely that the enemy, while repelling a drone attack using air defense systems, shot down its own multirole fighter jet.
General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Ймовірно, противник під час відбиття атаки БпЛА із застосуванням засобів ППО збив власний багатоцільовий винищувач.
ВМС ЗС України
— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) October 17, 2025
Ukrainian Navy spokesman, Captain 3rd Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk, later reported that the downed aircraft was a Su-30SM with tail number 107.
As expected, the Russian Ministry of Defense has not commented on the loss. However, it was confirmed by a well-informed former Russian military pilot, Ilya Tumanov, known on Telegram as Fighterbomber, whose post had a distinctly sarcastic tone:
A Su-30SM fighter jet crashed during a drone interception mission over the Crimean Peninsula.
Preliminary reports suggest that after launching a missile at a drone, a fire broke out on board, which the crew was unable to extinguish. The pilots ejected and are safe and sound.
Naturally, a state commission is now investigating the cause of the incident.
Judging by the circumstances, there could be many reasons, but the main theories are, as always:
– technical malfunction
– missile explosion after launch
– impact with drone debris or fragments of its own missile
– collision with a drone
– enemy fire
– light reflected from Venus hitting the upper atmosphere, causing a swamp gas explosion
– and so on, and so on.
To anyone who “already knows for sure” what caused it — yourself included — feel free to tell them to back off.
Losses of Russian Su-30 aircraft during the war with Ukraine are difficult to estimate precisely due to the lack of complete official data from either side. However, based on credible, visually confirmed sources, Russia is known to have lost at least 12–15 aircraft, mostly Su-30SM variants. This number includes aircraft destroyed in combat, on the ground, and in accidents.
So far this year, three additional losses have been recorded:
- August 14, 2025 – communication was lost with the crew near Snake Island;
- August 4, 2025 – another aircraft was destroyed on the ground during a drone strike on Crimea;
- May 2, 2025 – yet another was shot down by a Ukrainian Magura V5/V7 naval drone, using an R-73/AIM-9 air-to-air missile.
It has not been confirmed which two aircraft were hit on June 9, 2025, during the attack on Savasleyka Air Base in the Nizhny Novgorod region — the possibilities being a MiG-31K and either a Su-30 or Su-34
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