LUKHOVITSY (Sputnik) — Russia's Aerospace Forces plan to replace the entire fleet of light fighters with the state-of-the-art MiG-35 (Fulcrum-F) multirole fighters, the forces' commander, Viktor Bondarev, said Friday at the aircraft's presentation.
"We will buy these planes, we need them… In a short time, we will replace all light fighter aircraft with this class," Bondarev said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he hoped the Russian armed forces would be significantly reinforced by the new MiG-35.
"Upon completion of flight tests [in summer 2017], the Russian Aerospace Forces plan to buy the first batch of MiG-35s in the amount of 30 aircraft. A total of 170 aircraft will be purchased for the complete replacement of the light combat aircraft fleet," Bondarev specified.
The MiG-35 is a further development of the MiG-29M/M2 and MiG-29K/KUB fighter jets, featuring improved combat capability and flight performance characteristics.
