Ukraine's military intelligence has named the Russian companies that build the Su-35S fighter jet and singled out those no country has sanctioned, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Defense Ministry (HUR). The unsanctioned suppliers make parts as ordinary as wheels and fuel-system units, and one of them helped develop the aircraft. Kyiv wants sanctions efforts synchronized across every link of Russia's military-industrial complex.

The 22 firms no one has sanctioned

HUR identified 79 companies in the Su-35S production chain. Of those, 22 face no sanctions from any country restricting Russia over the war. The agency highlighted three. Rubin Aviation Corporation supplies the aircraft's braking and non-braking wheels. Gidroavtomatika builds the AU46-05 control units inside the fuel system. The Oktava research institute carried out design and development work on the Su-35S itself.

What the rest of the network builds

The 79 firms develop and produce the engines and fuel system, the control, communications, and guidance systems, the electronic warfare suite, and the main aviation missiles the jet carries into the war against Ukraine. HUR set the data out in the "Components in weapons" section of its War&Sanctions portal. The page carries a rotatable 3D model of the aircraft whose parts open onto the firms behind them, alongside directory listings and a profile for each company.

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Ukraine mapped Russia’s Su-35 down to individual control units—and found 22 firms nobody has sanctioned

Three sanctions regimes, loosely aligned

The gaps HUR points to exist because the restrictions are not one list. The EU legislates in packages, the US and other G7 states maintain their own designations, and Ukraine issues sanctions by presidential decree, each covering a different set of firms. Kyiv has spent years asking partners to synchronize those lists, and its own designations often run ahead of them. A company can therefore supply a frontline fighter and still trade freely under most of them.

Previously, HUR ran the same exercise on the Su-34, where a third of the production network was still unsanctioned. The same pattern shows up above the component level, with Russia's largest arms conglomerate covered by EU measures while hundreds of its subsidiaries are not, and Western machine tools still sitting inside Russian missile plants. 

Ukraine and Belgium are drawing up a bilateral agreement to deepen cooperation on drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after meeting Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot in Kyiv on 18 August. The two also discussed strengthening Ukraine's air power and shielding it from Russian attacks.

Cheap drones now decide much of the fighting, and Kyiv has turned years of learning to fly and defeat them into leverage—trading that edge for weapons and money with a lengthening line of Western partners.

A new deal takes shape

Teams on both sides are now writing the text of the Drone Deal and weighing possible dates to sign it, ArmyInform reported. Ukraine is ready to share its own expertise in unmanned systems with partners, Zelenskyy said.

Defense ran through the meeting, with both sides focused on strengthening Ukraine's combat aviation and defending its skies.

"I expect that we will be able to implement what we discussed, and there will be more protection from Russian strikes," Zelenskyy said.

Belgium has promised 30 F-16 fighter jets—the largest F-16 pledge from any single country—though none have reached Ukraine yet, with deliveries tied to Belgium's own switch to newer aircraft.

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Belgium's deeper backing

Zelenskyy thanked Belgium for more than $1.28 billion in support this year, covering defense and civilian needs alike, and for backing Ukraine's move toward the European Union. The military share flows from a standing pledge: since 2025, Belgium has committed to at least $1.16 billion in defense aid a year.

A 2024 security pact locked in that relationship, making a small Western European country one of Ukraine's steadier partners. Belgian firms also service the F-16s Ukraine already flies, the jets delivered by other partners in the coalition.

Poland says Ukraine has come back with a fresh offer to trade its retiring MiG-29 fighter jets for Ukrainian drones, though the entire account so far rests on Warsaw's word. The exchange has been announced, abandoned, and revived several times over the past year.

Ukraine still leans on its worn Soviet-era MiG-29s for air defense and strikes while it shifts to a mixed Western fleet of F-16s, Mirages, and incoming Gripens. Warsaw's 2023 handover of MiG-29s helped Kyiv replace jets lost in combat and keep its aging fighters flying with Western missiles and bombs.

Warsaw's latest version of events

Polish Deputy Defense Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said Ukraine returned to negotiations and sent Poland a concrete proposal naming which drones it would hand over, according to PAP. She spoke on Radio Zet on 30 July. The document, she said, has sat with the ministry for several days.

Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz will decide once his officials study it, and Sobkowiak-Czarnecka expects the matter to close within a few weeks at most. 

"We send the MiGs, the Ukrainian side hands over drones. That is the offer on the table today," she said.

The jets are Soviet-era, flown by Poland since the late 1980s and leaving service as F-35s and FA-50s replace them. Poland already sent Ukraine more than a dozen MiG-29s after the 2022 invasion. Ukrainian pilots fly the type and have adapted their jets to carry Western precision weapons.

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The repair demand dropped

Earlier, Poland said Kyiv had pressed it to pay for overhauling the aging jets. Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said that demand is now gone and the arrangement is a straight swap. Poland remains ready to help modernize the aircraft if Ukraine asks, she said, but the cost would fall on Ukraine or on allied states willing to cover it. 

Bulgaria also wants them, Poland says

Asked why Poland does not sell the jets to Bulgaria, which had shown interest, Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said Warsaw pursued the exchange with Ukraine first. Days earlier, another deputy minister said Poland had received a fresh request from an unnamed NATO country asking for the same fighters. 

A deal that keeps dying and coming back

Poland first floated handing over six to eight retiring MiG-29s in December 2025. In January, Warsaw planned a February transfer, and days later the government approved up to nine jets.

Then it fell apart. In late June, Kosiniak-Kamysz refused to send them, accusing Kyiv of walking away from the drone-technology side of the bargain. In early July, Warsaw said it would scrap the jets instead. The minister soon said the question stayed open, and by 10 July the sides had restarted talks.

Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

A Russian SU-25 fighter jet reportedly crashed over Donetsk Oblast on June 13, Russian social media channels reported.

Videos posted on social media of the purported crash by bloggers with close ties to the Russian Air Force appear to show the plane crashing into a field after closely being followed by another fighter jet. The circumstances of the crash remain unclear as rumours swirl of Russian 'friendly fire' as a potential cause of the crash.

The Kyiv Independent cannot independently verify the crash or the details surrounding it. Neither the Ukrainian nor Russian military have commented on the reported crash.

The Su-25, a Soviet-designed close-air support aircraft developed by Sukhoi in the late 1970s, is built for battlefield survivability. It features heavy armor and can withstand enemy fire.

The aircraft has been widely used in various conflicts, including in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and, more recently, in Ukraine, where both Russian and Ukrainian forces operate the platform.

Ukraine has downed multiple Russian Su-25s throughout the war. On Feb. 8, Ukraine's military reported shooting down a Russian Su-25 near the town of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast.

In another instance, Russia's Defense Ministry said on on March 24 that Russian Su-25 attack aircraft crashed during a routine training flight in Primorye Krai in Russia's Far East.

The incident comes less than two week following Ukraine's 'Operation Spiderweb' in which Ukrainian drones smuggled deep inside Russia and hidden inside trucks struck as many as 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airfields across the country.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian MiG-29 strikes Russian drone hub, ammo depot in Zaporizhzhia direction, releases video

Key developments on June 13: * Ukrainian MiG-29 strikes Russian drone hub, ammo depot in Zaporizhzhia direction, releases video * Ukrainian military denies NYT claims about Russian presence in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast * Russia preparing strategic reserves for conflicts beyond Ukraine, Ukraine warns * Ukraine repatriates bodies of 1,200 citizens, soldiers under Istanbul deal

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk