Russia's Su-57 Executed Its Boldest Mission Ever — Shooting Down Its Own Top-Secret Stealth Drone

Overview

Russia originally conceived the Sukhoi Su-57 as its answer to the American F-22 Raptor — a stealth air-superiority fighter with an order book of 76 aircraft. Sixteen years after its maiden flight, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) operate only around 30 airframes, and the jet's documented combat record consists almost entirely of standoff cruise missile launches conducted deep inside Russian airspace.

Moscow has since found new identities for the aircraft: a twin-seat Su-57D variant whose rear cockpit is purpose-built for drone control, which made its first flight in May; export deliveries to Algeria, making it the first fifth-generation fighter exported since the F-35; and a flying testbed for the definitive engine that has been in trials since 2017.

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The Most Revealing Combat Mission

The most revealing mission in the Su-57's combat history was flown against one of Russia's own aircraft. In October 2024, an Su-57 penetrated airspace protected by Ukrainian air defenses and used a short-range air-to-air missile to destroy an S-70 Okhotnik — Russia's own stealth combat drone and the Su-57's designated robotic wingman — after the flying-wing UAV went out of control and drifted approximately 16 kilometers behind Ukrainian front lines.

Moscow judged that allowing the classified aircraft to fall into Western hands was unacceptable, and the only platform trusted to carry out the intercept was the very fighter designed to operate alongside it. A program conceived more than two decades ago to contest air superiority against the Raptor thus executed its boldest penetration mission — to shoot down its own wingman.

The episode encapsulates the program as a whole, because the true story of the Su-57 is one of mission creep. The aircraft Russia designed and the aircraft Russia actually operates are two different machines — and what separates them is a number.

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Origins: Built to Fight the Raptor

The PAK FA program — the Su-57's development designation — was Russia's formal response to America's fifth-generation air power: a large, twin-engine, stealth air-superiority fighter. Analysts have long regarded it as the closest design counterpart to the F-22 rather than the F-35, combining supercruise capability, internal weapons bays, a sensor suite centered on the N036 multi-array radar, and extreme thrust-vectoring agility.

The prototype made its first flight in January 2010, four years after the F-22 entered service. The type was formally accepted into the VKS in December 2020, with a stated order for 76 aircraft — itself only a fraction of the F-35's reduced buy of 187, and far below Russia's earlier claims of a larger fleet.

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Production Reality: 16 Years, Roughly 30 Aircraft

Delivery figures tell a stark story. By the end of 2023, the VKS had 21 production-standard Su-57s plus 10 prototypes. Seven more were delivered in 2024, followed by two in April 2025, after which deliveries largely paused for modernization upgrades before a new batch with upgraded defensive sensors arrived in February, according to Rostec. Independent tallies place the production fleet at roughly 20 to just over 30 airframes.

Russia's response has been to announce acceleration: a new production facility opening in August 2025, confirmation from VKS Deputy Commander-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Alexander Maksimtsev that deliveries are being ramped up, and claims that output could exceed 25 aircraft this year. Those claims will be verified by the delivery ledger — which is precisely where every previous acceleration promise has fallen short.

Two comparisons calibrate the scale: Lockheed Martin delivers roughly as many F-35s in a single quarter as Russia has produced Su-57s in total. The Chengdu J-20 program, which launched after PAK FA, is estimated by open-source analysts to have a fleet approaching 500 airframes.

Even the Su-57's definitive engine remains absent: operational aircraft use an interim powerplant derived from the Su-35, while the AL-51F-1 — intended to deliver true fifth-generation supercruise — has been in testing since 2017 without entering service.

A fleet of 30 aircraft, however capable individually, cannot contest air superiority over a country the size of Ukraine, let alone provide cover against NATO. The type has therefore sought work that a small fleet can actually do.

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Ukraine: A Missile Truck That Never Crosses the Line

The combat record makes the drift explicit. The jet's documented war has been fought almost entirely at long range: in February 2024, an Su-57 escorted by two Su-35s launched a stealthy Kh-69 cruise missile from over Russian-controlled Luhansk; in May, Ukraine reported intensified Su-57 activity from over Kursk, Bryansk, and Luhansk. Always standoff, always on the Russian side of the front.

The cost of that posture has been felt on the ground: in June 2024, a Ukrainian long-range drone strike on the Akhtubinsk test center damaged at least one Su-57, prompting sharp criticism from Russian military bloggers over the exposure of the country's most prized fighter in unprotected open-air parking. This spring the war reached further still — Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces claimed a drone strike on four advanced combat aircraft, including Su-57s, at Shagol air base near Yekaterinburg, roughly 1,700 km from the front line. Unit commander Robert Brovdi called such strikes "critical for degrading the enemy's strike potential."

After a brief pause following the Shagol strike, the Su-57 returned to operations in May with its mission profile unchanged. Ukrainian air raid alert channels logged more than 10 Su-57 cruise missile launch events that month, with the aircraft operating over the Kursk border region, the Sea of Azov near Mariupol, and around Crimea — firing Kh-59 and Kh-69 missiles from hundreds of kilometers beyond the range of Ukrainian air defenses.

Army Recognition's analysis of the pattern describes the aircraft as operating "primarily as a standoff precision strike platform rather than a deep-penetrating stealth fighter" — a characterization consistent with Ukrainian monitoring alerts, though unconfirmed by independent verification and unacknowledged by Russia's Ministry of Defense.

Reporting this spring also referenced a new weapon deepening the same posture: the S-71K, a cruise missile with a reported range of approximately 300 km, reportedly designed to complete strike missions without entering Patriot interceptor envelopes. Whatever the promotional material says about supermaneuverability and stealth-on-stealth combat, the Su-57's real war is the war of an extraordinarily expensive, carefully husbanded missile truck.

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Drone Mothership and Export Flagship: New Roles Found

The pivot away from the original mission is where the program has been most creative. The drone-teaming role predates the war: one of the earliest flying prototypes was designated for Okhotnik integration work as far back as 2019. On May 19, the twin-seat Su-57D flew for the first time with chief test pilot Sergey Bogdan at the controls, translating the concept into hardware.

The extended tandem cockpit accommodates a rear-seat operator whose job is not to fly but to manage: controlling drones such as the Okhotnik, coordinating strikes, and conducting electronic warfare. It is, in effect, a command-and-control aircraft packaged in a fighter airframe — and an implicit acknowledgment that the scarcest fifth-generation asset is most useful when directing cheaper, less scarce ones.

The second new role is that of salesman. Algeria signed a contract for 14 aircraft in December 2019 as part of a larger procurement deal. In November 2025, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) President Vadim Badekha announced that the first two aircraft had been delivered to a foreign customer — "They have begun combat alert duty and are showing the best qualities," he said — with imagery from Algeria confirming operations as of February this year.

However small the batch, the milestone is real: the Su-57 became the first fifth-generation fighter delivered to an export customer since the F-35.

A larger prize remains in play in India. Moscow has reportedly offered New Delhi a twin-seat variant, technology transfer, local production arrangements, and even full source-code licensing according to earlier reports, in what Indian media describes as "deep consultations." New Delhi has not confirmed, and no formal request had been filed as of early this year, leaving the India chapter at the courtship stage. Vietnam's long-rumored interest is even more distant. Export momentum and the domestic program now reinforce each other: foreign revenue underwrites the production capacity expansion Russia hopes will eventually give its own air force a real fleet.

Underpinning both new roles is a third: the Su-57 as a flying laboratory — testing the still-absent definitive engine, a new export engine displayed at the Dubai Airshow, a flat two-dimensional thrust-vectoring nozzle intended to address well-known stealth deficiencies at the aircraft's rear, and systems Russia claims will form the foundation of its sixth-generation fighter program.

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The Counter-Argument: Preservation Is Strategy

There are legitimate arguments for Russia's approach. Carefully preserving 30 irreplaceable airframes is a rational choice; no air force would risk its scarcest assets on penetration missions that cruise missiles can accomplish, and standoff operations have delivered real effects without any confirmed air losses.

Russia argues that the type has received more rigorous real-world testing than any fifth-generation competitor, and that the design has been refined through wartime feedback — a claim dependent entirely on Russian sources, but not without basis.

The drone-mothership pivot aligns with the direction every serious air force is moving; the United States is building the same logic around Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) in the F-47 program. If the promised production ramp materializes, today's unconventional work may in retrospect look like a bridge across lean years.

All of that is true — and all of it is a more charitable description of the same underlying reality: these are the virtues of an aircraft that could not become a fleet.

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Conclusion

The Su-57's evolution is real — into standoff striker, drone shepherd, export flagship, and flying testbed — and every step has been driven by the number Russia failed to build.

The fighter that opened this story by shooting down its own wingman now has a twin-seat drone-operator variant that has made its first flight, a pair of airframes conducting combat operations in North Africa, and a war record written almost entirely on its own side of the front line.

Somewhere in the original PAK FA briefing deck, there is a fighter contesting air superiority against the Raptor.

The one Russia actually operates has never been asked to try.

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