Russian Su-35 Fighter Shot Down During ‘Ambush’ Operation By Ukrainian Patriot Air Defences - Reports

A Russian Aerospace Forces Su-35 air superiority fighter was reported on July 7 to have been shot down in the vicinity of Russia’s Kursk region during an operation that Ukrainian sources claim involved a MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence system deployed close to the border. After Ukrainian officials announced the crash of the fighter, from which the pilot survived, multiple open-source analysts and media outlets reported that a Patriot system was responsible. The Patriot is by far the longest ranged mobile air defence system in Ukrainian service, and by far the highest value military asset in the country, with its ability to conduct ambush operations against Russian aircraft near the frontlines having been demonstrated in the past. 

Earlier Patriot ambushes reportedly resulted in the destruction of multiple Russian aircraft, including a Su-34 strike fighter, a previous Su-35 fighter, and an Mi-8 helicopter, with the system’s ability to rapidly redeploy and activate, combined with its much longer engagement range than other Ukrainian assets, posing new challenges to Russian forces. Russian fighters have generally operated from high altitudes to avoid targeting by Ukraine’s vast arsenals of man-portable air defence systems, with the Patriot well optimised to fire on high flying aircraft over longer ranges. Although the Patriot is significantly less mobile than the S-300 systems Ukraine also operates, in particular the S-300V variant which is particularly well optimised for such frontline ‘ambush’ operations, the age of the S-300 variants Ukraine fields means these systems lack comparable ranges to modern Patriot variants. 

Ukraine has suffered from both severe shortages of interceptors for the Patriot system and from a high rate of attrition of its systems as they have been singled out for targeting using assets such as the Kinzhal air-launched and Iskander-M ground-based ballistic missile systems. Footage from March 2023 has shown the widespread destruction of Patriot systems in such strikes. At a time when Ukraine’s supporters in the Western world are struggling with major shortages of Patriot systems, which worsened significantly when the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East used well over 1,000 interceptors against Iranian targets during hostilities beginning in February 2026, the possibility of Ukraine’s arsenals being replenished remains limited. Poland was revealed in early July to have responded to Ukrainian shortages by for the first time donating Patriot interceptors from its own stockpiles, which are the last in NATO that have not been heavily depleted.

While the Patriot system is widely acknowledged by both Ukrainian officials and Western analysts to have a very limited ability to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles, it is expected to continue to pose a threat to Russian fighters near the frontlines. One significant factor in this is the Russian Aerospace Forces’ major delay in transitioning its fleet to field much more survivable fifth generation fighters, with the older Su-35 having a much larger radar cross section and being far easier to home in on using its own radar emissions. The shootdown has occurred at a time when the Russian Aerospace Forces are expected to receive Su-35 fighters at a reduced rate, as despite a significant increase in the fighter type’s production scale, production capacity is occupied by work to meet large Iranian export orders.