Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps has released a video showing the burning wreckage of a Russian Su-35 fighter jet, after the Ukrainian Air Force officially confirmed the aircraft was shot down on the eastern front on July 8, 2026.
The roughly one-minute clip, published on the evening of July 8, 2026, shows both the moment of the aircraft’s fall and its scattered remains, filmed at close range by one of the corps’ drones.
Російський винищувач Су-35 тліє у смузі відповідальності Третього армійського корпусу!
— Третій армійський корпус (@ab3army) July 9, 2026
Вітаємо Повітряні Сили України з успішним ураженням п*дарського СУ-35! pic.twitter.com/OGKj8qh23U
“A Russian Su-35 fighter is smoldering in the Third Army Corps’ zone of responsibility,” the unit wrote, congratulating the Ukrainian Air Force on the strike.
The Ukrainian Air Force had teased the result earlier the same day, writing on Telegram that its forces had “minused another Russian air terrorist,” before confirming in a follow-up post that a Russian Su-35 multirole fighter had been shot down that day on the eastern flank.
No weapon system officially identified
Neither the Ukrainian Air Force nor the 3rd Army Corps identified the weapon system used, and no details of the operation have been released. According to ArmyInform, the fate of the pilot also remains unknown, although the Russian military blogger channel Fighterbomber claimed the pilot survived.
The same channel, along with several monitoring accounts, claimed the fighter was engaged by a Patriot air defense system and F-16 fighter jets. These claims have not been verified and have not been acknowledged by Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine has so far not claimed any confirmed F-16 kill against a crewed Russian aircraft, with the jets primarily flying air defense missions against drones and cruise missiles while Russian fighters typically launch long-range missiles from beyond their reach.
A rare Su-35 loss for Russia
The Su-35, a heavily upgraded derivative of the Su-27 Flanker, is one of Russia’s most capable fourth-generation fighters, combining thrust-vectoring agility with a powerful passive electronically scanned array radar. The type has suffered relatively few confirmed losses since February 2022, at least two of them attributed to Russian friendly fire.
According to figures published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on July 8, 2026, Russia has lost 436 aircraft since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.