A Russian Su-30 fighter jet crashed on Thursday evening during a routine training mission in the Karelia region near the Finnish border, killing both pilots, the Defence Ministry confirmed. The ministry said the aircraft went down at around 7 pm Moscow time, adding that it crashed in an uninhabited area and was not carrying any ammunition during the flight.
Emergency response teams were sent to the Prionezhsky district after the region’s governor, Artur Parfenchikov, announced the incident and directed local services to the suspected crash site. He later confirmed that the jet fell deep inside a forested area, causing no civilian casualties or damage on the ground.
The cause of the crash remains unknown. Russian aviation authorities have launched an investigation, and a special commission has been formed to examine the wreckage and determine whether a technical malfunction or pilot error may have led to the accident.
The Su-30, a twin-engine, multirole fighter used extensively for both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations, is among the aircraft deployed in Russia’s war in Ukraine. The incident adds to a growing list of non-combat aviation accidents involving Russian military aircraft this year. In July, a Su-34 crashed in the Nizhny Novgorod region during another training flight.
Ukraine’s General Staff claims Russia has lost 428 aircraft since the start of the 2022 invasion, though independent analysts believe only a fraction of those losses involve Su-30SM jets.
