Iran has officially announced the purchase of Russian-made SU-35 fighter jets!

In fact, in the face of the ongoing military tension in the Middle East Ukraine, Iran has confirmed the purchase of an unknown number of new SU-35 fighter jets amid growing military cooperation and the establishment of long-term strategic relations between Iran and Russia. However, although it has not been disclosed that these fighter jets have been handed over to Iran, it is believed that Iran may purchase approximately 60 to 100 of these heavy and dedicated Russian fighter jets as a replacement for its air force's very old F-14 Tomcat and F-4/5 series fighter jets.

Despite achieving great success in designing and manufacturing its own technology defense systems, especially combat drones and ballistic missiles, in reality, the Iranian Air Force does not have very good quality and advanced jet fighters in its combat air fleet. Moreover, most of the fighter jets in their possession have long ended their service lives. Despite their friendship with China and Russia, Iran has not been able to ensure the highest level of modernization of their air force in the past two decades.

Currently, the most powerful fighter aircraft of the Iranian Air Force are the F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft purchased in the 1970s or 1980s, which are only about 18 to 24. In addition, there are about 40 MiG-29s made in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s among other important air strike combat aircraft. In addition, there are 60 American-made F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft, and 59 F-5 Tiger fighter aircraft. In addition, Iran has almost no aircraft capable of conducting long-range and heavy air combat missions.

Although there are a large number of very old and almost obsolete combat aircraft made during the former Soviet Union, there are only 26 to 28 Su-24 fighter aircraft, 20 Su-22 fighter aircraft, and only 24 Chinese-made J-7 light combat aircraft. In addition, there are 22 very old Mirage-F1 fighter aircraft made by France.  However, even in the 21st century, it remains a new wonder how countries like Iran and its ally North Korea have kept these large numbers of old combat aircraft operational.

Moreover, about 20% of Iran's fighter aircraft fleet is made up of the former Saddam Hussein military aircraft of Iraq. Iraqi pilots fled to Iran with their fighter aircraft during the Gulf War in 1990-91. Although Iran has used its own technology and reverse engineering capabilities to bring into service a number of light attack fighter aircraft of the ground attack facility named Hessa Kausar, Hessa Shikka and Hessa Azrakhsh. However, this is certainly not enough to meet the challenges of the Western world.

Although Iran has developed its own advanced Kahar-313 stealth prototype fighter aircraft, it has not yet entered service and may not have been able to launch its massive production line due to technical limitations.  However, although the Iranian Air Force's air combat fixed-wing capability is not strong, the recent rise of Iran's defense-related combat drone and missile technology has become a major challenge for the Western world. In particular, the country is going to create a new era by unveiling the new generation Shahed-149 heavy combat drone with a range of about 4,000 kilometers to the world.

Sources: Wikipedia, Reuters.