Russia Shoots Down Another Of Its Own Jets —Are American Rockets Confusing Them?

A day after ignominiously shooting down one of their own top-end Su-34M jets, Russian surface-to-air crews seem to have repeated the mistake, this time apparently knocking a Russian Su-35 out of the sky. The intended target may have been a U.S. supplied rocket.

Several videos have emerged of the latest shootdown. One shows the stricken aircraft going down almost vertically leaving a trail of smoke before it disappears behind trees. A second shows the final stages in which the flaming aircraft plunges to the ground, producing a huge fireball. A third video shows the burning wreck, with the pilot parachuting down in the distance. The location is near Nova Kakhova behind Russian lines, and many news sources are reporting that the aircraft was hit by Russian anti-aircraft fire.

The Ukrainian air force claimed that they shot down the Russian Su-35 but have provided no evidence. Other sources indicate that the Russian aircraft was attempting to intercept Ukrainian aircraft at the time.

The loss of an $85m Su-35 is an even bigger embarrassment than the previous loss of a $36m Su-34 bomber. The Su-35 is one of Russia’s most advanced fighters, a ‘supermaneuverable’ evolution of the Su-27 It is packed with advanced sensors and armed with a built-in cannon and twelve hardpoints for air-to-air missiles, and can also attack ground targets. Some say the Su-35 is overhyped, but it appears to have been reasonably successful in the current conflict with only one Su-35 previously lost, compared to ten Su-34 bombers shot down so far.

It is possible that this aircraft was shot down by Ukraine as claimed, but the timing, immediately after a similar incident, suggests that it might have been brought down by the Russians themselves due to a issues with their Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF) systems.

At present, Russian ammunition dumps, military headquarters and other targets are being devastated by long-range guided rockets from Ukraine’s new HiMARAR
S systems supplied by the U.S.. Russia’s S-400 missile system is claimed to be able to shootdown HiMARS rockets, and on June 8^th a military expert interviewed by TASS repeated that this was possible. However, HiMARS seems to operate without interference and Ukrainian sources say that so far not a single rocket has been successfully intercepted.

In a Twitter thread on July 17th, military analyst Layman noted that the S-400 is able to detect and track the American rockets but operators may have been instructed not to engage them because of difficulties with positively identifying a HiMARS guided rocket compared to a cheap Grad rocket. So it may be only now with rising losses that that Russia has decided to let its air defenses off the leash and allow them to engage everything. But changes to existing processes and procedures without sufficient training often cause glitches.

Looking at the latest shootdown, Layman speculates that the problem may be similar to what happened in 2003 with the Patriot missile system in Iraq: in one incident rather than intercepting a Scud missile as intended, it shot down a British Tornado jet.

“If this is correct, it means that Russian is hurriedly implementing untested modifications to counter Ukraine’s new capabilities,” Layman notes.

When the Su-24 was shot down earlier it was suggested that the problem was a lack of communication between local air defence commander and the Russian Air Force, and this may again have bene a factor. Or it may be that, as Layman suggests, demands from higher-ups to ‘do something’ about HiMARS ended badly.

This looks like another one of those cases where the Russians will be quite happy to credit the kill to Ukrainian forces rather than admit they did it themselves, so it may be some time before we know for sure what happened. Meanwhile the HiMARS keep firing – now joined by the even more dangerous M270 which carries twice as many rockets – and Russia still has no answer.