The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed that a Su-57 aircraft had been lost due to a “technical malfunction,” though locals described it as a friendly fire incident, with surface-to-air missile fire and a loud bang heard by the locals.
A Russian Su-57 Felon fighter jet is reported to have been downed outside of Moscow on Thursday morning local time during a training flight. Posts on social media have suggested the most advanced combat aircraft in Russia’s arsenal may have been shot down in a friendly fire incident.
A Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile shot the Su-57, causing significant damage to the reputation of the already controversial aircraft. The Russian manufacturer has already said the aircraft is in a developmental stage, with its engine and AESA radar yet to pass the bench test and lacking electronic warfare and sensor fusion capabilities.
Downing of this aircraft by a Soviet-era missile system again proves that the aircraft is in no way a stealth fifth-generation aircraft.
According to eyewitness reports, the pilot safely ejected, and there were no casualties on the ground. The aircraft was conducting a training flight in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region and crashed near the town of Zvenigorod, approximately 65 km (40 miles) west of Moscow’s central district.
Russian sources did not identify the type of fighter, and only acknowledged that a “combat trainer aircraft” had crashed.
“A combat trainer aircraft crashed during takeoff in the Moscow Region on July 23. The pilot ejected, and his life is not in danger,” the Russian Ministry of Defense told Russian state news agency TASS. “The aircraft crashed in an uninhabited area, causing no damage on the ground.”
The Russian ministry added that the warplane was not carrying any ordnance and that the preliminary cause of the mishap was an unspecified “technical malfunction.”
The closest military base to Zvenigorod is the Aerodrom Kubinka (Kubinka Air Base), located about 30 km (18.5 miles) to the southwest of the town. The base is the home of the Russian Knights and Swifts aerobatic demonstration teams, and it is a primary facility for demonstration and evaluation flights. The Russian Aerospace Forces assigned its initial batch of Su-57s to the facility, and test flights involving the Su-57 fighter continue to be conducted from the base.
Due to the threat from long-range Ukrainian drones, which have increasingly targeted the Moscow region, the majority of the Russian small fleet of Su-57s is currently hosted at the Dzyomgi Air Base in the Russian Far East. Although Ukraine has demonstrated that it can conduct attacks deep in the Russian interior, its ability to do so decreases with distance—and Dzyomgi is around 5,000 miles to the east of the line of contact between Russian and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine, making a strike on the base a daunting prospect.
Russia Can’t Easily Replace Su-57 Losses
If an Su-57 were downed on Thursday, it would be a significant setback for the Russian Aerospace Forces, which is believed to have fewer than three dozen of the aircraft in service. The Kremlin has struggled to produce the aircraft, and the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and its export subsidiary, Rosoboronexport, have largely failed to secure export customers for the multirole fighter.
To date, Algeria remains the only foreign buyer of the Su-57, which has been presented at numerous air shows and military trade exhibitions in recent years. Moscow has also been unsuccessful in closing a Su-57 co-production deal with India.
The first recorded crash involving a Su-57 occurred in December 2019 during a factory test flight in the Khabarovsk region of the Russian Far East. At least two Su-57s have been confirmed to have come under drone attacks, including one in June 2024 and another in April 2026.
Russia’s Fighter Jet Fleet Just Can’t Catch a Break
The crash involving the Russian fighter on Thursday morning also comes just days after US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told US lawmakers that a Ukrainian F-16 Fighting Falcon had scored an air-to-air kill against a Russian Su-35 Flanker-E/M on July 8.
That loss of the aircraft was also confirmed by Russian military bloggers, though the Kremlin itself remained tight-lipped about the incident.
Russia has lost approximately 430 fixed-wing military aircraft since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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