Su-75 Checkmate: Why Russia’s Stealth Fighter May Never Take Flight

What You Need to Know: The Su-75 Checkmate, Russia’s ambitious stealth fighter unveiled in 2021, faces significant hurdles threatening its future.

-Marketed as an affordable alternative to the F-35, the Su-75 has yet to progress beyond a mock-up, with repeated delays to its first flight.

-The Ukraine war has redirected Russian defense priorities toward sustaining ground operations, drawing resources away from advanced projects like the Su-75.

-Western sanctions have further disrupted access to critical components like microchips.

-Compounding these issues, waning confidence in Russian military equipment and limited export demand cast doubt on whether the Su-75 will ever achieve operational status.

Russia’s Su-75 Faces Delays, Sanctions, and Waning Demand

The ongoing war in Ukraine is consuming the lion’s share of Moscow’s attention and resources. Combined with Western sanctions on critical components, the jet is unlikely to leave the drawing board.

The Sukhoi Su-75 is a fifth-generation stealth concept fighter unveiled by Russia in 2021. Marketed as a low-cost alternative to advanced stealth jets like the American F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, the Su-75 was aimed at export markets, in particular to countries unable to afford more expensive Western designs or lacking friendly relations with those Western countries. 

Despite Russia’s status as a powerhouse of aviation innovation, the Su-75 stealth fighter project faces significant — likely insurmountable — hurdles and its future remains uncertain.

A Stealthy Design

Information on the Su-75 can be gleaned from a single mock-up unveiled by Sukhoi and from later provisional data released by the firm.

The jet appears to be a single-engine fighter with stealth capabilities. Stealthily contoured airframe geometry is anticipated to reduce the jet’s radar cross-section, and advanced avionics integration would be likely.

To excel, the jet would have to be capable of conducting both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, leveraging its affordability to appeal to buyers unable to access high-end Western aviation kit in Asia and the Middle East.

However, creating a functional stealth aircraft would not be easy and comes with a raft of engineering challenges, even for established aviation powerhouses like Russia.

A successful stealth aircraft requires precise airframe geometry to minimize radar reflections and specialized coatings to absorb radar waves. These technologies are notoriously complex and expensive to develop, test, and maintain.

Russia’s ability to master these for the Su-75 fighter while keeping costs low for the export market is questionable.

The Su-75’s development has been plagued by repeated delays. Initial flight tests, originally scheduled for 2023, have been postponed multiple times, a signal of potential technical or funding issues.

The project has not yet produced a prototype aircraft, and it the jet will ever enter production remains an open question at best.

Shifting Priorities: the War in Ukraine

A significant factor — perhaps the most significant factor — negatively affecting the Su-75’s future is Russia’s shifting defense priorities. Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian defense industry has redirected its resources toward sustaining its ongoing military operation on the ground.

The war in Ukraine has a shift in priorities toward producing cruise missiles, artillery shells, and low-cost drones to sustain its ground offensive instead of high-tech, resource-intensive projects like the Su-75.

Significant sums of money have been injected into the Russian economy in the form of cash sign-up bonuses and death payments to the families of killed Russian servicemen, further drawing resources away from defense projects with hefty price tags.

Sanctions and supply chain disruptions have further limited Russia’s access to critical components like high-end microchips, making the development of advanced aircraft extremely difficult.

A Dearth of Demand for Su-75

Further complicating the challenges the Su-75 faces is the reality that export demand for a single-engine Russian stealth fighter may be limited.

Nations capable of affording stealth aircraft have gravitated toward proven designs like the F-35, while Russia’s traditional customers may lack the necessary funds to buy into an expensive stealth fighter project — particularly for one that has not yet flown. Confidence in Russian military kit is ebbing as well, dinged by its performance in Ukraine.

Will This Stealth Fighter Ever Fly? 

On paper, Russia’s Su-75 is an ambitious attempt to produce an affordable, export-friendly stealth fighter.

But the engineering challenges of stealthily aviation technology, in tandem with Russian defense industry’s shift away from new projects to sustaining the offensive in Ukraine to meet more immediate needs and a lack of critical components due to a strict sanctions regime have all but killed the jet.

About the Author: Caleb Larson 

Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.