Ukraine's Air Force said on Wednesday that it shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 multirole fighter jet on the eastern front. The service said on Telegram, “Today, another Russian air terrorist was eliminated.”
The downing adds another aircraft to a war tally that Ukraine’s General Staff put at 436 aircraft and 353 helicopters as of Wednesday. The Su-35 is described as one of Russia's most advanced combat aircraft, used for air superiority missions and strikes against Ukrainian targets.
Ukraine’s General Staff tally
Ukraine’s General Staff tied the loss to a broader pattern of Russian aviation attrition. For a reader tracking the battlefield, the practical point is simple: a front-line fighter loss is not just a one-off claim, but part of a running count that Ukraine publishes as Russia keeps losing aircraft and helicopters in the war.
The report leaves one central operational detail open: how the Sukhoi Su-35 was brought down on the eastern front. That method matters because different air-defense tools and interception ranges change what can be inferred about Russian flight behavior, but the public report itself does not spell out the mechanism.
Belbek airfield and Su-35S production
The same reporting package also points to a contradiction in Russia's aviation picture. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said a June 26 strike on Russian-occupied Crimea destroyed a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet at Belbek airfield, and reported that incident on July 4, estimating losses in the tens of millions of dollars. At the same time, Russia's United Aircraft Corporation said in December 2025 that it had delivered a new batch of Su-35S multirole fighters to the Russian military.
That supply picture is reinforced by other background in the report. A Russian aviation outlet said the last known delivery, the sixth batch, was in November 2025 and estimated that 15 to 18 Su-35S jets were delivered in 2025, after 15 aircraft across four batches in 2024. The Su-35S is an upgraded version of the Su-27 Flanker developed in the 1980s and in service since 2014.
The same background says Russia reportedly licensed Iran to build the Su-35S jets as part of a bilateral military exchange, with Russia reportedly completing production of the first batch of 20 Su-35 fighters ordered by Iran last week. Military Watch Magazine said the aircraft were built at Russia's Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant, while leaked Russian military-industrial correspondence from late 2025 indicated that 16 Su-35s were already in production for Iran at the time.
Russia’s aircraft losses
For Ukraine, the value of Wednesday’s shootdown is immediate: it strips another Su-35 from Russia's fleet while Ukraine’s General Staff continues to publish a much larger aviation-loss figure. For Russia, the same report sits beside continued delivery and production claims, a reminder that battlefield attrition and industrial output are moving on different timelines.
The next open question is the one the report does not answer: how exactly was the Russian Sukhoi Su-35 shot down on the eastern front?
