The American magazine National Interest has cited former US Air Force (USAF) pilot Guy Razer as praising the performance characteristics of the Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jet.
The news outlet recalled that despite the MiG-29 having conducted its maiden flight in 1977, the aircraft remains "one of the most numerous warplanes in the world".
In 2001, then-USAF lieutenant colonel Razer trained Polish pilots, two years after Poland joined NATO and "brought into the alliance a large force of Soviet-made warplanes", including MiG-29s.
He said that during one of the training flights, he was in the back seat of the lead MiG-29 and found that compared to the F-15E he was accustomed to, the Soviet-made warplane was "highly maneuverable when needed but seemed to use a lot of fuel to make that happen".
The MiG-29 is a fourth-generation multirole fighter, with its first serial modification entering service with the Soviet Army in 1983.
The Russian Air Force currently has about 200 modernised MiG-29s with improved engines, modern radar, and infrared search and track sensors, as well as considerably increased fuel capacity.