Su-25 Frogfoot

The Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name Frogfoot, Russian nickname Grach, "rook") is a subsonic, single-seat, twin-engine armoured attack aircraft developed in the Soviet Union for close air support of ground forces. First flown on 22 February 1975 and in service since 1981, it is the Soviet counterpart to the A-10 Thunderbolt II: slow, heavily protected and built to deliver rockets and bombs from low altitude under fire. Around 1,000 were built before production ended in 2010, and the type remains in front-line use with many air forces, Russia's by far the largest. It has flown on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian war since 2022, losing heavily on both.

Development

The requirement dates from 1968, when the Soviet Ministry of Defence concluded that its fighter-bombers — Su-7, Su-17, MiG-21 and MiG-23 — were unsuited to supporting the army: they were unprotected against ground fire and too fast to let a pilot hold a target in view. A revival of the wartime shturmovik concept was ordered, and in March 1969 the Air Force opened a competition between the Sukhoi, Yakovlev, Ilyushin and Mikoyan bureaus. Sukhoi's T-8 design beat its principal rival, the Ilyushin Il-102; the T8-1 prototype flew in February 1975 and production was assigned to Factory No. 31 in Tbilisi, with deliveries from 1978 (two-seaters came from Ulan-Ude). Tbilisi built 582 single-seat Su-25s for the Soviet forces by 1989 plus 180 Su-25K export aircraft; Georgian production trickled on until 2010. Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing later announced the Ge-31, a rebuilt Su-25 without Russian components, but none had been delivered as of 2022.

Design

The Su-25 is a conventional shoulder-wing design with a trapezoidal wing of moderate sweep, a one-piece tailplane and a single fin. The airframe is 60 percent aluminium, 19 percent steel and 13.5 percent titanium: the pilot sits in a bathtub of welded titanium sheets with a 6 mm (0.24 in) steel headrest, on a Zvezda K-36 ejection seat. Rearward view is limited, and a periscope on the canopy partly makes up for it; a built-in folding ladder suits operations from rough forward strips.

Two non-afterburning turbojets — the Tumansky R-95Sh on early aircraft and the improved R-195 of 44 kN (4,500 kgf) each on later examples — sit in nacelles either side of the rear fuselage, separated by the fuselage. Maximum speed is about 970 km/h (600 mph) and maximum range around 1,000 km (620 mi); span is 14.36 m (47 ft 1 in) and length 15.53 m (50 ft 11 in) including the twin pitot probes on the hinged nose. The baseline avionics are simple: a Klen-PS laser rangefinder and marker in the nose, a Doppler navigation radar, a radar warning receiver and chaff and flare dispensers, with no television or radar sensor for weapons.

Armament

A twin-barrel 30 mm GSh-30-2 cannon with 250 rounds is mounted under the cockpit. Five hardpoints under each wing take up to 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) of stores: S-5, S-8, S-24 and S-25 rockets, FAB-250 and FAB-500 bombs, penetrators, incendiaries and gun pods, Kh-25ML and Kh-29L laser-guided missiles and KAB-500 guided bombs, and R-60 or R-73 missiles for self-defence. After accidents caused by salvo firing, the S-24 was withdrawn and the FAB-500 became the main weapon. The Su-25T added the Vikhr anti-tank missile; Su-25SM3s can carry the Kh-38.

Modernisation

Russia's upgrade path began with the Su-25T and Su-25TM, both judged over-sophisticated and cancelled in 2000 in favour of the "affordable" Su-25SM. The SM refit, from 2005, extends airframe life and installs the Bars digital navigation and attack suite, a head-up display and satellite navigation, improving weapon-delivery accuracy roughly threefold; more than 80 aircraft were upgraded by 2015. The Su-25SM3, delivered from 2018, replaces the Klen-PS with the SOLT-25 electro-optical turret (thermal imager and laser designator tracking moving targets at 8 km) and adds the Vitebsk-25 self-protection suite with missile-approach sensors and jamming pods, plus the SVP-24 bombsight adopted after Syria. Ukraine's MiGremont rebuilt ten aircraft to Su-25M1 and UBM1 standard by 2013, and the Georgian Su-25KM Scorpion of 2001, developed with Elbit Systems, offered a glass cockpit and Western weapons but found no customers.

Operational History

Afghanistan and the Soviet era

The first unit formed in Azerbaijan in February 1981 and its 200th Independent Squadron deployed to Shindand in western Afghanistan that July. The Su-25 became the most intensively used combat aircraft of the war, averaging 360 sorties per airframe per year; by 1989 some 50 were in-country and had flown 60,000 sorties, for 21 to 23 lost. Iraq flew its Su-25Ks against Iran from 1987; in 1991 seven fled to Iran and two were shot down by USAF F-15Cs.

Post-Soviet wars

Georgia used Su-25s against Abkhaz separatists in 1992-93, losing at least three. Russia flew the type intensively in both Chechen wars, losing four to ground fire and shoulder-launched missiles in 1994-96 and up to seven more in 1999-2000. Ethiopia lost one to an Eritrean MiG-29 in 2000; North Macedonian Su-25s, flown by Ukrainian pilots, struck Albanian insurgents at Raduša in June 2001; and in November 2004 an Ivorian Su-25 attack hit a French peacekeeping camp at Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers and prompting the destruction of the Ivorian air force on the ground. In the August 2008 war both Georgia and Russia used the type; Russia confirmed three Su-25s lost to Georgian Buk-M1 batteries and bombed the Tbilisi factory airfield where the aircraft was built.

Iraq, Syria and the Caucasus

From 2014 Ukrainian Su-25s flew ground-attack missions over the Donbas, where four were shot down in the summer of 2014 alone. The same summer Iraq received second-hand Su-25s from Russia and Iran, and the type flew 3,562 sorties against the Islamic State between June 2014 and December 2017, seven times as many as the Iraqi F-16s. Russian Su-25s at Latakia flew over 1,600 sorties in Syria between September 2015 and March 2016; one was shot down over Idlib by a MANPADS in February 2018. In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War Armenia claimed a Turkish F-16 had downed one of its Su-25s, which Turkey denied, and Azerbaijan lost one over Fuzuli on 4 October, probably to an Osa missile.

Russo-Ukrainian war, 2022-2026

The Frogfoot has been the workhorse of low-level attack on both sides since February 2022, much of it with unguided rockets, and losses have been heavy. Ukraine lost at least a dozen in the first three months, most to Russian air defences; its documented losses exceed twenty airframes, including aircraft destroyed on the ground at Kryvyi Rih in 2023-24. North Macedonia transferred four non-airworthy Su-25s in 2023, and from 2024 Ukrainian Su-25s were modified to launch the French AASM Hammer guided bomb, letting them strike from outside the range of Russian short-range air defences. Russia's losses were visually confirmed at 40 Su-25s (38 destroyed, two damaged) as of 24 October 2025. On 13 June 2025 a Russian Su-25 was filmed bringing down its own wingman over Soledar with an unguided rocket — a rare air-to-air kill for the type, and a fratricide. Elsewhere, two Sudanese Su-25s were destroyed at Khartoum in April 2023 in the opening days of the war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, and a Congolese Su-25 was lost near Kindu in June 2026.

Operators

Russia remains the dominant user, with some 175 Su-25s in the Aerospace Forces and a handful of Su-25UTG deck trainers in Naval Aviation as of 2026. Belarus (about 55) and North Korea (about 34) hold the next largest fleets, followed by Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Uzbekistan with between 13 and 25 each. Several African air forces, among them Sudan, Chad, Niger, Ethiopia and the DR Congo, fly the type, as do Peru, Bulgaria and Georgia.

Variants

• Su-25: Baseline single-seat attack aircraft, 582 built 1978-89.
• Su-25K: Export version, 180 built 1984-89.
• Su-25UB / UBK: Combat-capable two-seat trainer from 1985; UBK for export.
• Su-25UTG: Unarmed carrier-landing trainer with arrester hook, about ten built plus UB conversions for the Admiral Kuznetsov air group.
• Su-25BM: Target tug with R-195 engines, flown in 1990.
• Su-25T: Single-seat anti-tank version with Shkval electro-optics and Vikhr missiles; eleven built, cancelled in 2000.
• Su-25TM (Su-39): Su-25T with podded Kopyo radar for R-77 and anti-ship missiles; eight delivered.
• Su-25SM / SM3: Russian mid-life upgrades, from 2005 and 2018.
• Su-25KM Scorpion: Georgian-Israeli upgrade of 2001; prototype only.
• Su-25M1 / UBM1: Ukrainian MiGremont upgrades, ten by 2013.
• Su-25ML: Azerbaijani upgrade with Turkish Aerospace.