Two Russian Su-35S fighter jets collide mid-air over Kursk region

Two Russian Su-35S fighter jets collided in mid-air over the Kursk region, and both aircraft crashed. The incident was reported by a military blogger known as Fighterbomber on his Telegram channel.

The fate of the pilots has not been officially confirmed, as the Russian military has yet to comment on the incident. According to the monitoring channel Exilenova+, which cites Russian social media sources, one of the pilots died in the collision, while the other was severely injured.

The channel, reportedly run by Ilya Tumanov, a captain in the Russian Air Force, claims that the cause of the collision is still under investigation and remains unclear — a detail also reported by Ukraine's NV radio website.

A key aircraft in Russian aviation

The Su-35S fighter jet, along with the Su-30 and Su-34 fighter-bombers, forms the backbone of Russia's combat aviation. All three models were developed on the basis of the Su-27 fighter.

Russian aviation losses didn't stop there: in the early hours of Monday, the Russian Air Force lost a Su-24 tactical bomber — according to the Unian news agency, the aircraft was struck by a drone operated by Ukrainian special forces at a military airfield in Crimea.

Oryx, a specialized resource that tracks confirmed military equipment losses, reports that since the start of the war, Russia has lost eight Su-35S fighters and 15 Su-24 aircraft.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz