The Su-57 Has Finally Been Used in Combat — Here Is How It Performed

Russia has used its Su-57 stealth fighter in actual combat operations against Ukraine. Here is the first honest performance assessment from open-source evidence.

The Russian Su-57 'Felon' stealth fighter — Russia's fifth-generation air superiority aircraft whose development has been ongoing since 2002 and whose operational entry with the Russian Air Force has been extremely limited given production challenges — has been used in actual combat operations against Ukraine for the first time, according to Ukrainian military intelligence, Russian defence analysts, and open-source satellite imagery analysts who have been tracking its operational deployment.

The specific use: Su-57s have been firing Kh-69 stealth cruise missiles from positions inside Russian airspace — standoff launches that keep the aircraft well outside Ukraine's air defence range while delivering the missile against Ukrainian targets. This is consistent with Russia's cautious approach to Su-57 deployment, which has treated the aircraft as too valuable to expose to the risk of loss over contested airspace.

For the performance assessment from this specific use: the Kh-69 standoff delivery is not a particularly demanding mission for a fifth-generation stealth fighter — it does not require the internal weapons bay, the advanced avionics fusion, or the penetrating stealth capability that distinguish the Su-57 from previous generation Russian aircraft. It is essentially using a very expensive aircraft to do something a less expensive aircraft could accomplish.

For the broader Su-57 capability question: Russian production challenges have limited the operational fleet to approximately 10-15 airframes, insufficient for any sustained combat air patrol or air superiority mission at scale. The aircraft exists as a technology demonstrator and limited-capability operational asset rather than as the genuine competitor to Western fifth-generation aircraft that Russia's marketing describes.

For NATO air planners: the Su-57's actual combat employment confirms that Russia is preserving its limited fleet by using it only in the lowest-risk available mode. This tells the alliance something specific about Russia's assessment of the aircraft's replaceability in the current conflict context.