Russia claims new Su-57 export deals ahead of Egypt airshow

Russia’s state arms exporter says its Su-57 stealth fighter has proven itself in actual combat, a claim the company is making ahead of an international airshow in Egypt where it plans to showcase the jet and unveil new weapons built for it.

Alexander Mikheev, CEO of Rosoboronexport and deputy chairman of the Union of Machine Builders of Russia, made the claim in comments reported by Russian state news agency ahead of the El Alamein International Airshow, scheduled for September 8 to 10 at the international airport in El Alamein, Egypt.

Mikheev said worldwide interest in Russian aircraft, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, has grown because of what he described as their proven battlefield performance, though he did not cite specific combat data to support the claim.

Russia has in practice kept the Su-57 largely away from front-line combat over Ukraine, flying it mainly from standoff distance to launch cruise missiles rather than operating it in contested airspace near the front. That caution followed a series of setbacks. In June 2024, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said it had struck a Su-57 on the ground at the Akhtubinsk airfield in Russia’s Astrakhan region, roughly 589 kilometers (366 miles) from the front line, using one-way attack drones. Satellite images released by the agency showed the aircraft intact one day and scorched with blast craters nearby the next; a Russian military blogger known as Fighterbomber, believed to have ties to Russian air force personnel, confirmed the strike had occurred. Researchers at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute said at the time that even the temporary loss of a single Su-57 amounted to roughly a 5% cut in Russia’s frontline fleet of the jet, given how few are in service.

A separate incident that October raised further questions about the program. Video that circulated on both Russian and Ukrainian social media channels appeared to show a Su-57 shooting down Russia’s own S-70 Okhotnik combat drone, a large stealth aircraft designed to fly as an unmanned “loyal wingman” alongside the Su-57, near Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russian military channels attributed the incident to a malfunction that caused the S-70 to lose contact with its ground operator and drift toward Ukrainian-held territory, after which the accompanying Su-57 fired an air-to-air missile to prevent the drone’s wreckage from falling intact into Ukrainian hands. Russia’s Defense Ministry never issued a formal statement on the episode, and the S-70’s wreckage was recovered by Ukrainian forces.

Despite that record, Rosoboronexport says it has signed new export contracts for the Su-57E, the export version of the fighter, with deliveries expected to begin in 2026, though the company has not named the buying countries or disclosed contract values. At the Egyptian airshow, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation plans to fly the Su-57E in a demonstration and display it on static ground display, alongside the public debut of two new weapons built for the jet: the S-71M, described as a new delivery platform for a warhead, and the S-71K, an aerial bomb, both intended for fifth-generation fighters.

“Northern Africa is one of the important regions for promoting our products,” said Vadim Badekha, general director of United Aircraft Corporation, according to TASS. “UAC is one of the few companies in the world that has advanced competencies across all segments of aircraft manufacturing, which we are demonstrating at the exhibition. We will also show, for the first time, the newest aviation strike systems, which have no equivalents in the world.”

Russia’s state arms industry has consistently sought to frame the Su-57’s battlefield record positively for export purposes, even as independent reporting has documented specific losses and operational caution around the aircraft. Rosoboronexport has not disclosed how many Su-57E units are covered under the new export contracts or provided further detail on the aircraft’s actual combat employment inside Ukraine.

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