Russia to sell dozens of Su-35 to Iran: report

The website "19fortyfive" has cited an earlier report by another website the "aviacionline" as saying that Iran and Russia will sign a 20-year, $10 billion security and defense cooperation agreement in January 2022, which would include the purchase of Su-35 fighters, S-400 missiles and a satellite.

According to information gathered a defense analyst, the agreement will include the purchase of at least 24 Sukhoi Su-35SE heavy fighters. Many of these aircraft are already manufactured, as they were part of an unfinished order by Egypt.

Egypt was to become the first customer for the Su-35 in the Middle East area, following the signing of a contract during 2018 (not confirmed until May 2020), comprising the delivery of 24/26 units for approximately USD 3 billion. In fact, 15 or 16 aircraft were already manufactured and ready for delivery, but Egypt never received them.

According to "aviacionline", the impediment to the completion of the operation was that the United States threatened to sanction Egypt if it went ahead with the Su-35s. The operability of its fleet of more than 200 F-16s, dozens of AH-64 Apache helicopters, and hundreds of M-1 Abrams tanks was at risk.

Russia then tried to place 11 of these Su-35s in Indonesia, which had long ago almost finalized the purchase of a batch of these heavy fighters. But the head of the Indonesian Air Force declared that the Su-35 was excluded from the jet tender, in favor of the French Rafale and the American F-15EX.

KI/PR