{"id":373520,"date":"2026-07-29T12:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T19:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=373520"},"modified":"2026-07-29T12:08:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T19:08:04","slug":"ukraines-f-16-scores-its-first-confirmed-air-to-air-kill-a-russian-su-35-reportedly-downed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/ukraines-f-16-scores-its-first-confirmed-air-to-air-kill-a-russian-su-35-reportedly-downed\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s F-16 scores its first confirmed air-to-air kill: a Russian Su-35 reportedly downed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ukraine\u2019s Western-supplied F-16s appear to have scored their <strong>first confirmed<\/strong> air-to-air kill on July 8 over eastern Ukraine: the reported downing of a Russian Sukhoi Su-35. The confirmation came from U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Caine disclosed it publicly during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. If you track the air war closely, this one stands out. The Su-35 is one of Russia\u2019s most capable multirole fighters, and until now Ukraine had used its F-16s mostly in a defensive role since they started arriving in the summer of <strong>2024<\/strong>, mainly to intercept drones and cruise missiles.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So this matters on <strong>two levels<\/strong>, military and symbolic. It points to Kyiv possibly moving those Western-supplied F-16s into offensive counter-air missions against Russian crewed aircraft.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ukraine hasn\u2019t said which F-16 variant was involved or what missile was fired. Russian sources, for their part, claimed a Mikoyan MiG-29 may have been used as a decoy and that support from a Patriot air defense system may have helped set up a wider ambush. None of that has been independently confirmed. Russian military bloggers did say the Su-35 pilot ejected and survived.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ukraine\u2019s F-16s are <strong>older airframes<\/strong>, but they\u2019ve been updated and can carry AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. Ukraine is also expected to receive about 85 to 100 of the jets from Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. How much difference they make still comes down to the less glamorous parts of the equation: missiles, maintenance, spare parts, training, and tactics.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukraine\u2019s Western-supplied F-16s appear to have scored their first confirmed air-to-air kill on July 8 over eastern Ukraine: the reported downing of a Russian Sukhoi Su-35. The confirmation came from U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine. Caine disclosed it publicly during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. If you track the air war closely, this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/ukraines-f-16-scores-its-first-confirmed-air-to-air-kill-a-russian-su-35-reportedly-downed\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ukraine\u2019s F-16 scores its first confirmed air-to-air kill: a Russian Su-35 reportedly downed&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9328,"featured_media":373519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-373520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373521,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373520\/revisions\/373521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373520"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=373520"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=373520"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=373520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}